[agi] Digital incremental transmissions
Long ago I figured out how to build digital incremental transmissions. What are they? Imagine a sausage-shaped structure with the outside being many narrow reels of piano wire, with electrical and computer connections on the end. Under computer control, each of the rings can be independently controlled to rotate a specific distance playing one strand out while reeling another strand in, pull a specific amount, or execute a long coordinated sequence of moves. Further, this is a true infinitely-variable transmission, so that if you command a ring to turn REALLY slowly, you can exert nearly limitless force, or at least enough to destroy the structure. Hence, obvious software safeguards are needed. Lowering a weight recovers the energy to use elsewhere, or return out the supply lines. In short, a complete android musculature could be build this way, and take only a tiny amount of space - MUCH less than in our bodies, or with motors as is now the case. Little heat would be generated because this system is fundamentally efficient. Nearly all of the components are cut from flat metal stock, akin to mechanical clock parts, only with much beefier shapes. Hence, it is both cheap and strong. Think horsepower, available from any strand. The strand pairs would be hooded up to be flexor and extensor muscles for the many joints, etc. I haven't actually built it because I haven't (yet) found a customer who wanted it badly m enough to pay the development costs and then wait a year for it. However, this would sure make be an enabling system for people who want to build REAL robots. Does anyone here have ANY idea what to do with this, other than putting it back on the shelf and waiting another decade? Steve --- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=8660244-6e7fb59c Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] Anyone going to the Singularity Summit?
Ben, There is obvious confusion here. MOST mutations harm, but occasionally one helps. By selecting for a particular difficult-to-achieve thing, like long lifespan, we can discard the harmful mutations while selecting for the helpful ones. However, selecting for something harmful and easy to achieve, like the presence of genes that shorten lifespan, the selection process is SO non-specific that it can't tell us much of anything. There are countless mutations that kill WITHOUT conferring compensatory advantages. I could see stressing the flies in various ways without controlling for lifespan, but controlling for short lifespan in the absence of such stresses would seem to be completely worthless. Of course, once stressed, you would also be seeing genes to combat those (irrelevant) stresses. In short, I still haven't heard words that suggest that this can go anywhere, though it sure would be wonderful (like you and I might live twice as long) if some workable path could be found. I still suspect that the best path is in analyzing the DNA of long-living people, rather than that of fruit flies. Perhaps there is some way to combine the two approaches? Steve On Wed, Aug 11, 2010 at 8:37 PM, Ben Goertzel b...@goertzel.org wrote: On Wed, Aug 11, 2010 at 11:34 PM, Steve Richfield steve.richfi...@gmail.com wrote: Ben, It seems COMPLETELY obvious (to me) that almost any mutation would shorten lifespan, so we shouldn't expect to learn much from it. Why then do the Methuselah flies live 5x as long as normal flies? You're conjecturing this is unrelated to the dramatically large number of SNPs with very different frequencies in the two classes of populations??? ben *agi* | Archives https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ | Modifyhttps://www.listbox.com/member/?;Your Subscription http://www.listbox.com --- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=8660244-6e7fb59c Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] Anyone going to the Singularity Summit?
Bryan, *I'm interested!* Continuing... On Tue, Aug 10, 2010 at 11:27 AM, Bryan Bishop kanz...@gmail.com wrote: On Tue, Aug 10, 2010 at 6:25 AM, Steve Richfield wrote: Note my prior posting explaining my inability even to find a source of used mice for kids to use in high-school anti-aging experiments, all while university labs are now killing their vast numbers of such mice. So long as things remain THIS broken, anything that isn't part of the solution simply becomes a part of the very big problem, AIs included. You might be inerested in this- I've been putting together an adopt-a-lab-rat program that is actually an adoption program for lab mice. ... then it is an adopt-a-mouse program? I don't know if you are a *Pinky and the Brain* fan, but calling your project something like *The Pinky Project* would be catchy. In some cases mice that are used as a control group in experiments are then discarded at the end of the program because, honestly, their lifetime is over more or less, so the idea is that some people might be interested in adopting these mice. I had several discussions with the folks at the U of W whose job it was to euthanize those mice. Their worries seemed to center in two areas: 1. Financial liability, e.g. a mouse bites a kid, whose finger becomes infected and... 2. Social liability, e.g. some kids who are torturing them put their videos on the Internet. Of course, you can also just pony up the $15 and get one from Jackson Labs. Not the last time I checked. They are very careful NOT to sell them to exactly the same population that I intend to supply them to - high-school kids. I expect that if I became a middleman, that they would simply stop selling to me. Even I would have a hard time purchasing them, because they only sell to genuine LABS. I haven't fully launced adopt-a-lab-rat yet because I am still trying to figure out how to avoid ending up in a situation where I have hundreds of rats and rodents running around my apartment and I get the short end of the stick (oops). *What is your present situation and projections? How big a volume could you supply? What are their approximate ages? Do they have really good documentation? Were they used in any way that might compromise anti-aging experiments, e.g. raised in a nicer-than-usual-laboratory environment? Do you have any liability concerns as discussed above? * Mice in the wild live ~4 years. Lab mice live ~2 years. If you take a young lab mouse and do everything you can to extend its life, you can approach 4 years. If you take an older lab mouse and do everything you can, you double the REMAINDER of their life, e.g. starting with a one-year-old mouse, you could get it to live ~3 years. How much better (or worse) than this you do is the basis for judging by the Methuselah Mouse people. Hence, really good documentation is needed to establish when they were born, and when they left a laboratory environment. Tattoos or tags link the mouse to the paperwork. If I/you/we are to get kids to compete to develop better anti-aging methods, the mice need to be documented well enough to PROVE beyond a shadow of a doubt that they did what they claimed they did. Steve --- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=8660244-6e7fb59c Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] Anyone going to the Singularity Summit?
Ben, Genescient has NOT paralleled human mating habits that would predictably shorten life. They have only started from a point well beyond anything achievable in the human population, and gone on from there. Hence, while their approach may find some interesting things, it is unlikely to find the things that are now killing our elderly population. Continuing... On Tue, Aug 10, 2010 at 11:59 AM, Ben Goertzel b...@goertzel.org wrote: I should dredge up and forward past threads with them. There are some flaws in their chain of reasoning, so that it won't be all that simple to sort the few relevant from the many irrelevant mutations. There is both a huge amount of noise, and irrelevant adaptations to their environment and their treatment. They have evolved many different populations in parallel, using the same fitness criterion. This provides powerful noise filtering Multiple measurements improve the S/N ratio by the square root of the number of measurements. Hence, if they were to develop 100 parallel populations, they could expect to improve their S/N ratio by 10:1. They haven't done 100 parallel populations, and they need much better than 10:1 improvement to the S/N ratio. Of course, this is all aside from the fact that their signal is wrong because of the different mating habits. Even when the relevant mutations are eventually identified, it isn't clear how that will map to usable therapies for the existing population. yes, that's a complex matter Further, most of the things that kill us operate WAY too slowly to affect fruit flies, though there are some interesting dual-affecting problems. Fruit flies get all the major ailments that kill people frequently, except cancer. heart disease, neurodegenerative disease, respiratory problems, immune problems, etc. Curiously, the list of conditions that they DO exhibit appears to be the SAME list as people with reduced body temperatures exhibit. This suggests simply correcting elderly people's body temperatures as they crash. Then, where do we go from there? Note that as you get older, your risk of contracting cancer rises dramatically - SO dramatically that the odds of you eventually contracting it are ~100%. Meanwhile, the risks of the other diseases DECREASE as you get older past a certain age, so if you haven't contracted them by ~80, then you probably never will contract them. Scientific American had an article a while back about people in Israel who are 100 years old. At ~100, your risk of dieing during each following year DECREASES with further advancing age!!! This strongly suggests some early-killers, that if you somehow escape them, you can live for quite a while. Our breeding practices would certainly invite early-killers. Of course, only a very tiny segment of the population lives to be 100. As I have posted in the past, what we have here in the present human population is about the equivalent of a fruit fly population that was bred for the shortest possible lifespan. Certainly not. ??? Not what? We have those fruit fly populations also, and analysis of their genetics refutes your claim ;p ... Where? References? The last I looked, all they had in addition to their long-lived groups were uncontrolled control groups, and no groups bred only from young flies. In any case, since the sociology of humans is SO much different than that of fruit flies, and breeding practices interact so much with sociology, e.g. the bright colorings of birds, beards (that I have commented on before), etc. In short, I would expect LOTS of mutations from young-bread groups, but entirely different mutations in people than in fruit flies. I suspect that there is LOTS more information in the DNA of healthy people 100 than there is in any population of fruit flies. Perhaps, data from fruit flies could then be used to reduce the noise from the limited human population who lives to be 100? Anyway, if someone has thought this whole thing out, I sure haven't seen it. Sure there is probably lots to be learned from genetic approaches, but Genescient's approach seems flawed by its simplicity. The challenge here is as always. The value of such research to us is VERY high, yet there is no meaningful funding. If/when an early AI becomes available to help in such efforts, there simply won't be any money available to divert it away from defense (read that: offense) work. Steve --- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=8660244-6e7fb59c Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] Anyone going to the Singularity Summit?
Ben, It seems COMPLETELY obvious (to me) that almost any mutation would shorten lifespan, so we shouldn't expect to learn much from it. What particular lifespan-shortening mutations are in the human genome wouldn't be expected to be the same, or even the same as separated human populations. Hmmm, an interesting thought: I wonder if certain racially mixed people have shorter lifespans because they have several disjoint sets of such mutations?!!! Any idea where to find such data? It has long been noticed that some racial subgroups do NOT have certain age-related illnesses, e.g. Japanese don't have clogged arteries, but they DO have lots of cancer. So far everyone has been blindly presuming diet, but seeking a particular level of genetic disaster could also explain it. Any thoughts? Steve On Wed, Aug 11, 2010 at 8:06 AM, Ben Goertzel b...@goertzel.org wrote: We have those fruit fly populations also, and analysis of their genetics refutes your claim ;p ... Where? References? The last I looked, all they had in addition to their long-lived groups were uncontrolled control groups, and no groups bred only from young flies. Michael rose's UCI lab has evolved flies specifically for short lifespan, but the results may not be published yet... *agi* | Archives https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ | Modifyhttps://www.listbox.com/member/?;Your Subscription http://www.listbox.com --- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=8660244-6e7fb59c Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] Anyone going to the Singularity Summit?
Ben, On Mon, Aug 9, 2010 at 1:07 PM, Ben Goertzel b...@goertzel.org wrote: I'm speaking there, on Ai applied to life extension; and participating in a panel discussion on narrow vs. general AI... Having some interest, expertise, and experience in both areas, I find it hard to imagine much interplay at all. The present challenge is wrapped up in a lack of basic information, resulting from insufficient funds to do the needed experiments. Extrapolations have already gone WAY beyond the data, and new methods to push extrapolations even further wouldn't be worth nearly as much as just a little more hard data. Just look at Aubrey's long list of aging mechanisms. We don't now even know which predominate, or which cause others. Further, there are new candidates arising every year, e.g. Burzynski's theory that most aging is secondary to methylation of DNA receptor sites, or my theory that Aubrey's entire list could be explained by people dropping their body temperatures later in life. There are LOTS of other theories, and without experimental results, there is absolutely no way, AI or not, to sort the wheat from the chaff. Note that one of the front runners, the cosmic ray theory, could easily be tested by simply raising some mice in deep tunnels. This is high-school level stuff, yet with NO significant funding for aging research, it remains undone. Note my prior posting explaining my inability even to find a source of used mice for kids to use in high-school anti-aging experiments, all while university labs are now killing their vast numbers of such mice. So long as things remain THIS broken, anything that isn't part of the solution simply becomes a part of the very big problem, AIs included. The best that an AI could seemingly do is to pronounce Fund and facilitate basic aging research and then suspend execution pending an interrupt indicating that the needed experiments have been done. Could you provide some hint as to where you are going with this? Steve --- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=8660244-6e7fb59c Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] Anyone going to the Singularity Summit?
Ben, On Tue, Aug 10, 2010 at 8:44 AM, Ben Goertzel b...@goertzel.org wrote: I'm writing an article on the topic for H+ Magazine, which will appear in the next couple weeks ... I'll post a link to it when it appears I'm not advocating applying AI in the absence of new experiments of course. I've been working closely with Genescient, applying AI tech to analyze the genomics of their long-lived superflies, so part of my message is about the virtuous cycle achievable via synergizing AI data analysis with carefully-designed experimental evolution of model organisms... I should dredge up and forward past threads with them. There are some flaws in their chain of reasoning, so that it won't be all that simple to sort the few relevant from the many irrelevant mutations. There is both a huge amount of noise, and irrelevant adaptations to their environment and their treatment. Even when the relevant mutations are eventually identified, it isn't clear how that will map to usable therapies for the existing population. Perhaps you remember the old Star Trek episode about the long-lived population that was still locked in a war after hundreds of years? The episode devolved into a dispute over the potential value of this discovery - was there something valuable in the environment, or did they just evolve to live longer? Here, the long-lived population isn't even human. Further, most of the things that kill us operate WAY too slowly to affect fruit flies, though there are some interesting dual-affecting problems. Unfortunately, it isn't as practical to autopsy fruit flies as it is to autopsy people to see what killed them. As I have posted in the past, what we have here in the present human population is about the equivalent of a fruit fly population that was bred for the shortest possible lifespan. Our social practices could hardly do worse. Our present challenge is to get to where fruit flies were before Rose first bred them for long life. I strongly suspect that we have some early-killer mutations, e.g. to people off as quickly as possible after they pass child-bearing age, which itself is probably being shortened through our bizarre social habits of mating like-aged people. Genescient's approach holds no promise of identifying THOSE genes, and identifying the other genes won't help at all until those killer genes are first silenced. In short, there are some really serious challenges to Genescient's approach. I expect success for several other quarters long before Genescient bears real-world usable fruit. I suspect that these challenges, along with the ubiquitous shortage of funding will keep Genescient out of producing real-world usable results pretty much forever. Future AGI output: Fund aging research. Update on studying more of Burzynski's papers: His is not a cancer cure at all. What he is doing is removing gene-silencing methylization from the DNA, and letting nature take its course, e.g. having their immune systems kill the cancer via aptosis. In short, it is a real-world anti-aging approach that has snuck in under the radar. OF COURSE any real-world working anti-aging approach would kill cancer! How good is his present product? Who knows? It sure looks to me like this is a valid approach, and I suspect that any bugs will get worked out in time. WATCH THIS. This looks to me like it will work in the real-world long before any other of the present popular approaches stand a chance of working. After all, it sure seems to be working on some people with really extreme gene silencing - called cancer. Steve --- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=8660244-6e7fb59c Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] Help requested: Making a list of (non-robotic) AGI low hanging fruit apps
Ben On Sat, Aug 7, 2010 at 6:10 PM, Ben Goertzel b...@goertzel.org wrote: I need to substantiate the case for such AGI technology by making an argument for high-value apps. There is interesting hidden value in some stuff. In the case of Dr. Eliza, it provide a communication pathway to sick people, which is EXACTLY what a research institution needs to support itself. I think you may be on to something here - looking for high-value. Steve --- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=8660244-6e7fb59c Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] Epiphany - Statements of Stupidity
John, You brought up some interesting points... On Fri, Aug 6, 2010 at 10:54 PM, John G. Rose johnr...@polyplexic.comwrote: -Original Message- From: Steve Richfield [mailto:steve.richfi...@gmail.com] On Fri, Aug 6, 2010 at 10:09 AM, John G. Rose johnr...@polyplexic.com wrote: statements of stupidity - some of these are examples of cramming sophisticated thoughts into simplistic compressed text. Definitely, as even the thoughts of stupid people transcends our (present) ability to state what is happening behind their eyeballs. Most stupidity is probably beyond simple recognition. For the initial moment, I was just looking at the linguistic low hanging fruit. You are talking about, those phrases, some are clichés, There seems to be no clear boundary between clichés and other stupid statements, except maybe that clichés are exactly quoted like that's just your opinion while other statements are grammatically adapted to fit the sentences and paragraphs that they inhabit. Dr. Eliza already translates idioms before processing. I could add clichés without changing a line of code, e.g. that's just your opinion might translate into something like I am too stupid to to understand your explanation. Dr. Eliza has an extensive wildcard handler, so it should be able to handle the majority of grammatically adapted statements in the same way, by simply including appropriate wildcards in the pattern. are like local K complexity minima, in a knowledge graph of partial linguistic structure, where neural computational energy is preserved, and the statements are patterns with isomorphisms to other experiential knowledge intra and inter agent. That is, other illogical misunderstanding of the real world, which are probably NOT shared with more intelligent agents. This present a serious problem with understanding by more intelligent agents. More intelligent agents have ways of working more optimally with the neural computational energy, perhaps by using other more efficient patterns thus avoiding those particular detrimental pattern/statements. ... and this present a communications problem with agents with radically different intelligences, both greater and lesser. But the statements are catchy because they are common and allow some minimization of computational energy as well as they are like objects in a higher level communication protocol. To store them is less bits and transfer is less bits per second. However, they have negative information content - if that is possible, because they require a false model of the world to process, and produce completely erroneous results. Of course, despite these problems, they DO somewhat accurately communicate the erroneous nature of the thinking, so there IS some value there. Their impact is maximal since they are isomorphic across knowledge and experience. ... the ultimate being: Do, or do not. There is no try. At some point they may just become symbols due to their pre-calculated commonness. Egad, symbols to display stupidity. Could linguistics have anything that is WORSE?! Language is both intelligence enhancing and limiting. Human language is a protocol between agents. So there is minimalist data transfer, I had no choice but to ... is a compressed summary of potentially vastly complex issues. My point is that they could have left the country, killed their adversaries, taken on a new ID, or done any number of radical things that they probably never considered, other than taking whatever action they chose to take. A more accurate statement might be I had no apparent rational choice but to The other low probability choices are lossily compressed out of the expressed statement pattern. It's assumed that there were other choices, usually factored in during the communicational complexity related decompression, being situational. The onus at times is on the person listening to the stupid statement. I see. This example was in reality a gapped or ellipsis, where reasonably presumed words were omitted. These are always a challenge, except in common places like clichés where the missing words can be automatically inserted. Thanks again for your thoughts. Steve = The mind gets hung-up sometimes on this language of ours. Better off at times to think less using English language and express oneself with a wider spectrum communiqué. Doing a dance and throwing paint in the air for example, as some *primitive* cultures actually do, conveys information also and is medium of expression rather than using a restrictive human chat protocol. You are saying that the problem is that our present communication permits statements of stupidity, so we shouldn't have our present system of communication? Scrap English?!!! I consider statements of stupidity as a sort of communications checksum, to see if real interchange of ideas is even possible. Often
Re: [agi] Help requested: Making a list of (non-robotic) AGI low hanging fruit apps
Ben, Dr. Eliza with the Gracie interface to Dragon NaturallySpeaking makes a really spectacular speech I/O demo - when it works, which is ~50% of the time. The other 50% of the time, it fails to recognize enough to run with, misses something critical, etc., and just sounds stupid, kinda like most doctors I know. Even when it fails, it still babbles on with domain-specific comments. Results are MUCH better when a person with speech I/O and chronic illness experience operates it. Note that Gracie handles interruptions and other violations of conversational structure. Further, it speaks in 3 voices, one for the expert, one for the assistant, and one for the environment and OS. Note that the Microsoft standard speech I/O has a mouth control that moves simultaneously with the sound, that is pasted on an egghead face, so you can watch it speak. Note that the speech recognition works AMAZINGLY well, because the ONLY thing it is interested in are long technical words and relevant phrases, and NOT in the short connecting words that are what usually gets messed up. When you watch what was recognized during casual conversation, what you typically see is gobbledygook between the important stuff, which comes shining through. There are plans to greatly enhance all this, but like everything else on this forum, it suffers from inadequate resources. If someone is looking for something that is demonstrable right now to throw even modest resources into... That program was then adapted to a web server by adding logic to sense when it was on a server, whereupon some additional buttons appear to operate and debug it in a server environment. That adapted program is now up and running, without any of the speech I/O stuff, on http://www.DrEliza.com. I know, it isn't AGI, but neither is anything else these days. Any interest? Steve On Sat, Aug 7, 2010 at 6:10 PM, Ben Goertzel b...@goertzel.org wrote: Hi, A fellow AGI researcher sent me this request, so I figured I'd throw it out to you guys I'm putting together an AGI pitch for investors and thinking of low hanging fruit applications to argue for. I'm intentionally not involving any mechanics (robots, moving parts, etc.). I'm focusing on voice (i.e. conversational agents) and perhaps vision-based systems. Hellen Keller AGI, if you will :) Along those lines, I'd like any ideas you may have that would fall under this description. I need to substantiate the case for such AGI technology by making an argument for high-value apps. All ideas are welcome. All serious responses will be appreciated!! Also, I would be grateful if we could keep this thread closely focused on direct answers to this question, rather than digressive discussions on Helen Keller, the nature of AGI, the definition of AGI versus narrow AI, the achievability or unachievability of AGI, etc. etc. If you think the question is bad or meaningless or unclear or whatever, that's fine, but please start a new thread with a different subject line to make your point. If the discussion is useful, my intention is to mine the answers into a compact list to convey to him Thanks! Ben G --- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?; Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com --- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=8660244-6e7fb59c Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] Epiphany - Statements of Stupidity
Ian, I recall several years ago that a group in Britain was operating just such a chatterbox as you explained, but did so on numerous sex-related sites, all running simultaneously. The chatterbox emulated young girls looking for sex. The program just sat there doing its thing on numerous sites, and whenever a meeting was set up, it would issue a message to its human owners to alert the police to go and arrest the pedophiles at the arranged time and place. No human interaction was needed between arrests. I can imagine an adaptation, wherein a program claims to be manufacturing explosives, and is looking for other people to deliver those explosives. With such a story line, there should be no problem arranging deliveries, at which time you would arrest the would-be bombers. I wish I could tell you more about the British project, but they were VERY secretive. I suspect that some serious Googling would yield much more. Hopefully you will find this helpful. Steve = On Sat, Aug 7, 2010 at 1:16 PM, Ian Parker ianpark...@gmail.com wrote: I wanted to see what other people's views were.My own view of the risks is as follows. If the Turing Machine is built to be as isomorphic with humans as possible, it would be incredibly dangerous. Indeed I feel that the biological model is far more dangerous than the mathematical. If on the other hand the TM was *not* isomorphic and made no attempt to be, the dangers would be a lot less. Most Turing/Löbner entries are chatterboxes that work on databases. The database being filled as you chat. Clearly the system cannot go outside its database and is safe. There is in fact some use for such a chatterbox. Clearly a Turing machine would be able to infiltrate militant groups however it was constructed. As for it pretending to be stupid, it would have to know in what direction it had to be stupid. Hence it would have to be a good psychologist. Suppose it logged onto a jihardist website, as well as being able to pass itself off as a true adherent, it could also look at the other members and assess their level of commitment and knowledge. I think that the true Turing/Löbner test is not working in a laboratory environment but they should log onto jihardist sites and see how well they can pass themselves off. If it could do that it really would have arrived. Eventually it could pass itself off as a *peniti* to use the Mafia term and produce arguments from the Qur'an against the militant position. There would be quite a lot of contracts to be had if there were a realistic prospect of doing this. - Ian Parker On 7 August 2010 06:50, John G. Rose johnr...@polyplexic.com wrote: Philosophical question 2 - Would passing the TT assume human stupidity and if so would a Turing machine be dangerous? Not necessarily, the Turing machine could talk about things like jihad without ultimately identifying with it. Humans without augmentation are only so intelligent. A Turing machine would be potentially dangerous, a really well built one. At some point we'd need to see some DNA as ID of another extended TT. Philosophical question 3 :- Would a TM be a psychologist? I think it would have to be. Could a TM become part of a population simulation that would give us political insights. You can have a relatively stupid TM or a sophisticated one just like humans. It might be easier to pass the TT by not exposing too much intelligence. John These 3 questions seem to me to be the really interesting ones. - Ian Parker --- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?; Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com *agi* | Archives https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ | Modifyhttps://www.listbox.com/member/?;Your Subscription http://www.listbox.com --- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=8660244-6e7fb59c Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
[agi] Epiphany - Statements of Stupidity
To All, I have posted plenty about statements of ignorance, our probable inability to comprehend what an advanced intelligence might be thinking, heidenbugs, etc. I am now wrestling with a new (to me) concept that hopefully others here can shed some light on. People often say things that indicate their limited mental capacity, or at least their inability to comprehend specific situations. 1) One of my favorites are people who say I had no choice but to ..., which of course indicates that they are clearly intellectually challenged because there are ALWAYS other choices, though it may be difficult to find one that is in all respects superior. While theoretically this statement could possibly be correct, in practice I have never found this to be the case. 2) Another one recently from this very forum was If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. This may be theoretically true, but in fact was, as usual, made as a statement as to why the author was summarily dismissing an apparent opportunity of GREAT value. This dismissal of something BECAUSE of its great value would seem to severely limit the authors prospects for success in life, which probably explains why he spends so much time here challenging others who ARE doing something with their lives. 3) I used to evaluate inventions for some venture capitalists. Sometimes I would find that some basic law of physics, e.g. conservation of energy, would have to be violated for the thing to work. When I explained this to the inventors, their inevitable reply was Yea, and they also said that the Wright Brothers' plane would never fly. To this, I explained that the Wright Brothers had invested ~200 hours of effort working with their crude homemade wind tunnel, and ask what the inventors have done to prove that their own invention would work. 4) One old stupid standby, spoken when you have make a clear point that shows that their argument is full of holes That is just your opinion. No, it is a proven fact for you to accept or refute. 5) Perhaps you have your own pet statements of stupidity? I suspect that there may be enough of these to dismiss some significant fraction of prospective users of beyond-human-capability (I just hate the word intelligence) programs. In short, semantic analysis of these statements typically would NOT find them to be conspicuously false, and hence even an AGI would be tempted to accept them. However, their use almost universally indicates some short-circuit in thinking. The present Dr. Eliza program could easily recognize such statements. OK, so what? What should an AI program do when it encounters a stupid user? Should some attempt be made to explain stupidity to someone who is almost certainly incapable of comprehending their own stupidity? Stupidity is forever is probably true, especially when expressed by an adult. Note my own dismissal of a some past posters for insufficient mental ability to understand certain subjects, whereupon they invariably come back repeating the SAME flawed logic, after I carefully explained the breaks in their logic. Clearly, I was just wasting my effort by continuing to interact with these people. Note that providing a stupid user with ANY output is probably a mistake, because they will almost certainly misconstrue it in some way. Perhaps it might be possible to dumb down the output to preschool-level, at least that (small) part of the output that can be accurately stated in preschool terms. Eventually as computers continue to self-evolve, we will ALL be categorized as some sort of stupid, and receive stupid-adapted output. I wonder whether, ultimately, computers will have ANYTHING to say to us, like any more than we now say to our dogs. Perhaps the final winner of the Reverse Turing Test will remain completely silent?! You don't explain to your dog why you can't pay the rent from *The Fall of Colossus*. Any thoughts? Steve --- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=8660244-6e7fb59c Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] Epiphany - Statements of Stupidity
Mike, Your reply flies in the face of two obvious facts: 1. I have little interest in what is called AGI here. My interests lie elsewhere, e.g. uploading, Dr. Eliza, etc. I posted this piece for several reasons, as it is directly applicable to Dr. Eliza, and because it casts a shadow on future dreams of AGI. I was hoping that those people who have thought things through regarding AGIs might have some thoughts here. Maybe these people don't (yet) exist?! 2. You seem to think that a walk before you run approach, basically a bottom-up approach to AGI, is the obvious one. It sure isn't obvious to me. Besides, if my statements of stupidity theory is true, then why even bother building AGIs, because we won't even be able to meaningfully discuss things with them. Steve == On Fri, Aug 6, 2010 at 2:57 AM, Mike Tintner tint...@blueyonder.co.ukwrote: sTEVE:I have posted plenty about statements of ignorance, our probable inability to comprehend what an advanced intelligence might be thinking, What will be the SIMPLEST thing that will mark the first sign of AGI ? - Given that there are zero but zero examples of AGI. Don't you think it would be a good idea to begin at the beginning? With initial AGI? Rather than advanced AGI? *agi* | Archives https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ | Modifyhttps://www.listbox.com/member/?;Your Subscription http://www.listbox.com --- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=8660244-6e7fb59c Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] Epiphany - Statements of Stupidity
John, Congratulations, as your response was the only one that was on topic!!! On Fri, Aug 6, 2010 at 10:09 AM, John G. Rose johnr...@polyplexic.comwrote: statements of stupidity - some of these are examples of cramming sophisticated thoughts into simplistic compressed text. Definitely, as even the thoughts of stupid people transcends our (present) ability to state what is happening behind their eyeballs. Most stupidity is probably beyond simple recognition. For the initial moment, I was just looking at the linguistic low hanging fruit. Language is both intelligence enhancing and limiting. Human language is a protocol between agents. So there is minimalist data transfer, I had no choice but to ... is a compressed summary of potentially vastly complex issues. My point is that they could have left the country, killed their adversaries, taken on a new ID, or done any number of radical things that they probably never considered, other than taking whatever action they chose to take. A more accurate statement might be I had no apparent rational choice but to The mind gets hung-up sometimes on this language of ours. Better off at times to think less using English language and express oneself with a wider spectrum communiqué. Doing a dance and throwing paint in the air for example, as some **primitive** cultures actually do, conveys information also and is medium of expression rather than using a restrictive human chat protocol. You are saying that the problem is that our present communication permits statements of stupidity, so we shouldn't have our present system of communication? Scrap English?!!! I consider statements of stupidity as a sort of communications checksum, to see if real interchange of ideas is even possible. Often, it is quite impossible to communicate new ideas to inflexible-minded people. BTW the rules of etiquette of the human language protocol are even more potentially restricting though necessary for efficient and standardized data transfer to occur. Like, TCP/IP for example. The Etiquette in TCP/IP is like an OSI layer, akin to human language etiquette. I'm not sure how this relates, other than possibly identifying people who don't honor linguistic etiquette as being (potentially) stupid. Was that your point? Steve == *From:* Steve Richfield [mailto:steve.richfi...@gmail.com] To All, I have posted plenty about statements of ignorance, our probable inability to comprehend what an advanced intelligence might be thinking, heidenbugs, etc. I am now wrestling with a new (to me) concept that hopefully others here can shed some light on. People often say things that indicate their limited mental capacity, or at least their inability to comprehend specific situations. 1) One of my favorites are people who say I had no choice but to ..., which of course indicates that they are clearly intellectually challenged because there are ALWAYS other choices, though it may be difficult to find one that is in all respects superior. While theoretically this statement could possibly be correct, in practice I have never found this to be the case. 2) Another one recently from this very forum was If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. This may be theoretically true, but in fact was, as usual, made as a statement as to why the author was summarily dismissing an apparent opportunity of GREAT value. This dismissal of something BECAUSE of its great value would seem to severely limit the authors prospects for success in life, which probably explains why he spends so much time here challenging others who ARE doing something with their lives. 3) I used to evaluate inventions for some venture capitalists. Sometimes I would find that some basic law of physics, e.g. conservation of energy, would have to be violated for the thing to work. When I explained this to the inventors, their inevitable reply was Yea, and they also said that the Wright Brothers' plane would never fly. To this, I explained that the Wright Brothers had invested ~200 hours of effort working with their crude homemade wind tunnel, and ask what the inventors have done to prove that their own invention would work. 4) One old stupid standby, spoken when you have make a clear point that shows that their argument is full of holes That is just your opinion. No, it is a proven fact for you to accept or refute. 5) Perhaps you have your own pet statements of stupidity? I suspect that there may be enough of these to dismiss some significant fraction of prospective users of beyond-human-capability (I just hate the word intelligence) programs. In short, semantic analysis of these statements typically would NOT find them to be conspicuously false, and hence even an AGI would be tempted to accept them. However, their use almost universally indicates some short-circuit in thinking. The present Dr. Eliza program could easily recognize such statements. OK
Re: [agi] Computer Vision not as hard as I thought!
David, You are correct in that I keep bad company. My approach to NNs is VERY different than other people's approaches. I insist on reasonable math being performed on quantities that I understand, which sets me apart from just about everyone else. Your neat approach isn't all that neat, and is arguably scruffier than mine. At least I have SOME math to back up my approach. Further, note that we are self-organizing systems, and that this process is poorly understood. I am NOT particularly interest in people-programmed systems because of their very fundamental limitations. Yes, self-organization is messy, but it fits the neat definition better than it meets the scruffy definition. Scruffy has more to do with people-programmed ad hoc approaches (like most of AGI), which I agree are a waste of time. Steve On Wed, Aug 4, 2010 at 12:43 PM, David Jones davidher...@gmail.com wrote: Steve, I wouldn't say that's an accurate description of what I wrote. What a wrote was a way to think about how to solve computer vision. My approach to artificial intelligence is a Neat approach. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neats_vs._scruffies The paper you attached is a Scruffy approach. Neat approaches are characterized by deliberate algorithms that are analogous to the problem and can sometimes be shown to be provably correct. An example of a Neat approach is the use of features in the paper I mentioned. One can describe why the features are calculated and manipulated the way they are. An example of a scruffies approach would be neural nets, where you don't know the rules by which it comes up with an answer and such approaches are not very scalable. Neural nets require manually created training data and the knowledge generated is not in a form that can be used for other tasks. The knowledge isn't portable. I also wouldn't say I switched from absolute values to rates of change. That's not really at all what I'm saying here. Dave On Wed, Aug 4, 2010 at 2:32 PM, Steve Richfield steve.richfi...@gmail.com wrote: David, It appears that you may have reinvented the wheel. See the attached article. There is LOTS of evidence, along with some good math, suggesting that our brains work on rates of change rather than absolute values. Then, temporal learning, which is otherwise very difficult, falls out as the easiest of things to do. In effect, your proposal shifts from absolute values to rates of change. Steve === On Tue, Aug 3, 2010 at 8:52 AM, David Jones davidher...@gmail.comwrote: I've suddenly realized that computer vision of real images is very much solvable and that it is now just a matter of engineering. I was so stuck before because you can't make the simple assumptions in screenshot computer vision that you can in real computer vision. This makes experience probably necessary to effectively learn from screenshots. Objects in real images to not change drastically in appearance, position or other dimensions in unpredictable ways. The reason I came to the conclusion that it's a lot easier than I thought is that I found a way to describe why existing solutions work, how they work and how to come up with even better solutions. I've also realized that I don't actually have to implement it, which is what is most difficult because even if you know a solution to part of the problem has certain properties and issues, implementing it takes a lot of time. Whereas I can just assume I have a less than perfect solution with the properties I predict from other experiments. Then I can solve the problem without actually implementing every last detail. *First*, existing methods find observations that are likely true by themselves. They find data patterns that are very unlikely to occur by coincidence, such as many features moving together over several frames of a video and over a statistically significant distance. They use thresholds to ensure that the observed changes are likely transformations of the original property observed or to ensure the statistical significance of an observation. These are highly likely true observations and not coincidences or noise. *Second*, they make sure that the other possible explanations of the observations are very unlikely. This is usually done using a threshold, and a second difference threshold from the first match to the second match. This makes sure that second best matches are much farther away than the best match. This is important because it's not enough to find a very likely match if there are 1000 very likely matches. You have to be able to show that the other matches are very unlikely, otherwise the specific match you pick may be just a tiny bit better than the others, and the confidence of that match would be very low. So, my initial design plans are as follows. Note: I will probably not actually implement the system because the engineering part dominates the time. I'd rather convert real
Re: [agi] Computer Vision not as hard as I thought!
David On Wed, Aug 4, 2010 at 1:16 PM, David Jones davidher...@gmail.com wrote: 3) requires manually created training data, which is a major problem. Where did this come from. Certainly, people are ill equipped to create dP/dt type data. These would have to come from sensors. 4) is designed with biological hardware in mind, not necessarily existing hardware and software. The biology is just good to help the math over some humps. So far, I have not been able to identify ANY neuronal characteristic that hasn't been refined to near-perfection, once the true functionality was fully understood. Anyway, with the math, you can build a system anyway you want. Without the math, you are just wasting your time and electricity. The math comes first, and all other things follow. Steve === These are my main reasons, at least that I can remember, that I avoid biologically inspired methods. It's not to say that they are wrong. But they don't meet my requirements. It is also very unclear how to implement the system and make it work. My approach is very deliberate, so the steps required to make it work are pretty clear to me. It is not that your approach is bad. It is just different and I really prefer methods that are not biologically inspired, but are designed specifically with goals and requirements in mind as the most important design motivator. Dave On Wed, Aug 4, 2010 at 3:54 PM, Steve Richfield steve.richfi...@gmail.com wrote: David, You are correct in that I keep bad company. My approach to NNs is VERY different than other people's approaches. I insist on reasonable math being performed on quantities that I understand, which sets me apart from just about everyone else. Your neat approach isn't all that neat, and is arguably scruffier than mine. At least I have SOME math to back up my approach. Further, note that we are self-organizing systems, and that this process is poorly understood. I am NOT particularly interest in people-programmed systems because of their very fundamental limitations. Yes, self-organization is messy, but it fits the neat definition better than it meets the scruffy definition. Scruffy has more to do with people-programmed ad hoc approaches (like most of AGI), which I agree are a waste of time. Steve On Wed, Aug 4, 2010 at 12:43 PM, David Jones davidher...@gmail.comwrote: Steve, I wouldn't say that's an accurate description of what I wrote. What a wrote was a way to think about how to solve computer vision. My approach to artificial intelligence is a Neat approach. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neats_vs._scruffies The paper you attached is a Scruffy approach. Neat approaches are characterized by deliberate algorithms that are analogous to the problem and can sometimes be shown to be provably correct. An example of a Neat approach is the use of features in the paper I mentioned. One can describe why the features are calculated and manipulated the way they are. An example of a scruffies approach would be neural nets, where you don't know the rules by which it comes up with an answer and such approaches are not very scalable. Neural nets require manually created training data and the knowledge generated is not in a form that can be used for other tasks. The knowledge isn't portable. I also wouldn't say I switched from absolute values to rates of change. That's not really at all what I'm saying here. Dave On Wed, Aug 4, 2010 at 2:32 PM, Steve Richfield steve.richfi...@gmail.com wrote: David, It appears that you may have reinvented the wheel. See the attached article. There is LOTS of evidence, along with some good math, suggesting that our brains work on rates of change rather than absolute values. Then, temporal learning, which is otherwise very difficult, falls out as the easiest of things to do. In effect, your proposal shifts from absolute values to rates of change. Steve === On Tue, Aug 3, 2010 at 8:52 AM, David Jones davidher...@gmail.comwrote: I've suddenly realized that computer vision of real images is very much solvable and that it is now just a matter of engineering. I was so stuck before because you can't make the simple assumptions in screenshot computer vision that you can in real computer vision. This makes experience probably necessary to effectively learn from screenshots. Objects in real images to not change drastically in appearance, position or other dimensions in unpredictable ways. The reason I came to the conclusion that it's a lot easier than I thought is that I found a way to describe why existing solutions work, how they work and how to come up with even better solutions. I've also realized that I don't actually have to implement it, which is what is most difficult because even if you know a solution to part of the problem has certain properties and issues, implementing it takes a lot of time. Whereas I can just
Re: [agi] Computer Vision not as hard as I thought!
David, On Wed, Aug 4, 2010 at 1:45 PM, David Jones davidher...@gmail.com wrote: Understanding what you are trying to accomplish and how you want the system to work comes first, not math. It's all the same. First comes the qualitative, then comes the quantitative. If your neural net doesn't require training data, Sure it needs training data -real-world interactive sensory input training data, rather than static manually prepared training data. I don't understand how it works or why you expect it to do what you want it to do if it is self organized. How do you tell it how to process inputs correctly? What guides the processing and analysis? Bingo - you have just hit on THE great challenge in AI/AGI., and the source of much past debate. Some believe in maximizing the information content of the output. Some believe in other figures of merit, e.g. success in interacting with a test environment, success in forming a layered structure, etc. This particular sub-field is still WIDE open and waiting for some good answers. Note that this same problem presents itself, regardless of approach, e.g. AGI. Steve === On Wed, Aug 4, 2010 at 4:33 PM, Steve Richfield steve.richfi...@gmail.com wrote: David On Wed, Aug 4, 2010 at 1:16 PM, David Jones davidher...@gmail.comwrote: 3) requires manually created training data, which is a major problem. Where did this come from. Certainly, people are ill equipped to create dP/dt type data. These would have to come from sensors. 4) is designed with biological hardware in mind, not necessarily existing hardware and software. The biology is just good to help the math over some humps. So far, I have not been able to identify ANY neuronal characteristic that hasn't been refined to near-perfection, once the true functionality was fully understood. Anyway, with the math, you can build a system anyway you want. Without the math, you are just wasting your time and electricity. The math comes first, and all other things follow. Steve === These are my main reasons, at least that I can remember, that I avoid biologically inspired methods. It's not to say that they are wrong. But they don't meet my requirements. It is also very unclear how to implement the system and make it work. My approach is very deliberate, so the steps required to make it work are pretty clear to me. It is not that your approach is bad. It is just different and I really prefer methods that are not biologically inspired, but are designed specifically with goals and requirements in mind as the most important design motivator. Dave On Wed, Aug 4, 2010 at 3:54 PM, Steve Richfield steve.richfi...@gmail.com wrote: David, You are correct in that I keep bad company. My approach to NNs is VERY different than other people's approaches. I insist on reasonable math being performed on quantities that I understand, which sets me apart from just about everyone else. Your neat approach isn't all that neat, and is arguably scruffier than mine. At least I have SOME math to back up my approach. Further, note that we are self-organizing systems, and that this process is poorly understood. I am NOT particularly interest in people-programmed systems because of their very fundamental limitations. Yes, self-organization is messy, but it fits the neat definition better than it meets the scruffy definition. Scruffy has more to do with people-programmed ad hoc approaches (like most of AGI), which I agree are a waste of time. Steve On Wed, Aug 4, 2010 at 12:43 PM, David Jones davidher...@gmail.comwrote: Steve, I wouldn't say that's an accurate description of what I wrote. What a wrote was a way to think about how to solve computer vision. My approach to artificial intelligence is a Neat approach. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neats_vs._scruffies The paper you attached is a Scruffy approach. Neat approaches are characterized by deliberate algorithms that are analogous to the problem and can sometimes be shown to be provably correct. An example of a Neat approach is the use of features in the paper I mentioned. One can describe why the features are calculated and manipulated the way they are. An example of a scruffies approach would be neural nets, where you don't know the rules by which it comes up with an answer and such approaches are not very scalable. Neural nets require manually created training data and the knowledge generated is not in a form that can be used for other tasks. The knowledge isn't portable. I also wouldn't say I switched from absolute values to rates of change. That's not really at all what I'm saying here. Dave On Wed, Aug 4, 2010 at 2:32 PM, Steve Richfield steve.richfi...@gmail.com wrote: David, It appears that you may have reinvented the wheel. See the attached article. There is LOTS of evidence, along with some good math, suggesting that our brains work
Re: [agi] Walker Lake
Matt, On Tue, Aug 3, 2010 at 4:56 AM, tintner michael tint...@blueyonder.co.ukwrote: I totally agree that surveillance will become ever more massive - because it has v. positive as well as negative benefits. But people will find ways of resisting and evading it - they always do. And it's interesting to speculate how - perhaps erver more detailed public identities - (more and more facts about you becoming public knowledge) - will be matched by proliferating personas, (people taking on false identities on the net) - or by black spots (times when you're allowed to switch off from the net and surveillance) - or no doubt by other means. The government is now going to borderline insane methods to close on some of this. To illustrate: I now live in a large home with a secure fence and remotely controlled gate, which sits atop a high bluff which is on the same property. To provide some separation of mail by subject and recipient, I decided to plant another mailbox with a made-up address. I put a paper in it advising the mailman (actually a woman) to activate the box, and put the flag up. The next day, junk mail started to arrive, and it was clearly working. Fast forward a year to the Census. No Census forms arrived in my new mailbox. However, after the last investigator asking for information about the main address was sent packing without any information, one evening yet another Census investigator arrived asking about my made-up address. He said that Google showed it as being on the steep part of the bluff. I simply said that it didn't exist, and he left. The next morning there was a helicopter hovering over the bluff examining it very carefully. Apparently, they have given up on tracking personas, but NOT on tracking properties. They must be going absolutely insane over the ~100K families living in RVs. Having lived on wheels for ~16 years in the past, I have observed the continuous ratcheting up of regulations to control this population. Dealing with this required a day or two of legal research every year or so. My officially issued WA driver's license still says NOT FOR IDENTIFICATION and Not a resident or citizen of WA state on it. I can't imagine someone just starting out figuring out all that is necessary to navigate the legal labyrinth. Imagine the following which happens often to those who are unprepared: You are driving along on a nice sunny day and a policeman pulls you over. He asks for your driver's license and asks where you live. You give him your license and indicate that you live in the RV that you are now driving. He points out that your license was issued in a different state, and since you now live in an RV that is distant from that state, your driver's license is no longer valid. Also, your vehicle license is no longer valid, unless it is from a state like Nevada that doesn't require residency as a precondition for registration. He then VERY CAREFULLY inspects your vehicle and finds that a tail light has burnt out. Oops, we'll have to red-tag this vehicle as being unsafe! If you were unlucky enough to be stopped in Nevada, you would probably be arrested for some minor traffic offense, as I once was. Then, a tow truck arrives and tows your unsafe (because of the bad tail light) and/or abandoned (because you are now in jail) vehicle away. When you go to recover it, you discover that they want more money than you have, because they charged thousands of dollars in towing and storage fees, plus there is no way to correct its legal shortcomings to get it out of the lockup, and they won't release it until it is 100% legal by THEIR standards. Storage fees quickly mount up to a hopeless fortune, and they sell your home. There are some small towns that support themselves partly in this manner. If you live in an RV, you absolutely MUST take action against such things because various variants are quite common, e.g. have a driver's license that isn't automatically invalid anywhere, never drive your RV anywhere alone, have the title SO messed up (e.g. with unsatisfied liens) that it is nearly impossible to navigate the paperwork to seize it, don't own an RV that is worth enough to employ lawyers to overcome the challenges that you have placed in their way, etc. Akin to Richard's proposal of having a hyper-complex network of constraints to control an AGI, various governments have already developed hyper-complex constraint networks to control people. After all, that is how our supposedly free society works. Just take a week or so and read the motor vehicle code for your state. Ain't freedom just wonderful?! Having been through this, I hereby soundly reject your assertion that people can overcome an AGI-controlled society. Sure, a few might manage, but to overcome something like a central controlling government, it would take a massive coordinated effort, and there is NO WAY that, with future technology in the hands of a central controlling government, that this would ever be even
[agi] Walker Lake
Sometime when you are flying between the northwest US to/from Las Vegas, look out your window as you fly over Walker Lake in eastern Nevada. At the south end you will see a system of roads leading to tiny buildings, all surrounded by military security. From what I have been able to figure out, you will find the U.S. arsenal of chemical and biological weapons housed there. No, we are not now making these weapons, but neither are we disposing of them. Similarly, there has been discussion of developing advanced military technology using AGI and other computer-related methods. I believe that these efforts are fundamentally anti-democratic, as they allow a small number of people to control a large number of people. Gone are the days when people voted with their swords. We now have the best government that money can buy monitoring our every email, including this one, to identify anyone resisting such efforts. 1984 has truly arrived. This can only lead to a horrible end to freedom, with AGIs doing their part and more. Like chemical and biological weapons, unmanned and automated weapons should be BANNED. Unfortunately, doing so would provide a window of opportunity for others to deploy them. However, if we make these and stick them in yet another building at the south end of Walker Lake, we would be ready in case other nations deploy such weapons. How about an international ban on the deployment of all unmanned and automated weapons? The U.S. won't now even agree to ban land mines. At least this would restore SOME relationship between popular support and military might. Doesn't it sound ethical to insist that a human being decide when to end another human being's life? Doesn't it sound fair to require the decision maker to be in harm's way, especially when the person being killed is in or around their own home? Doesn't it sound unethical to add to the present situation? When deployed on a large scale, aren't these WMDs? Steve --- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=8660244-6e7fb59c Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] Walker Lake
Matt, I grant you your points, but they miss the my point. Where is this ultimately leading - to a superpower with the ability to kill its opponents without any risk to itself. This may be GREAT so long as you agree with and live under that superpower, but how about when things change for the worse? What if we get another Bush who lies to congress and wages unprovoked war with other nations, only next time with vast armies of robots ala *The Clone Wars*? Sure the kill rate will be almost perfect. Sure we can more accurately kill their heads of government without killing so many civilians along the way. How about when you flee future U.S. tyranny, and your new destination becomes valued by the U.S. enough to send a bunch of robots in to seize it. Your last thought could be of the U.S. robot that is killing YOU. Oops, too late to reconsider where this is all going. Note in passing that our standard of living has been gradually declining as the wealth of the world is concentrated into fewer and fewer hands. Note in passing that the unemployment situation is looking bleaker and bleaker, with no prospect for improvement in sight. Do you REALLY want to concentrate SO much power in the hands of SUCH a dysfunctional government? If this doesn't work out well, what would be the options for improvement? This appears to be a one-way street with no exit. Steve = On Mon, Aug 2, 2010 at 7:55 AM, Mike Tintner tint...@blueyonder.co.ukwrote: Steve:How about an international ban on the deployment of all unmanned and automated weapons? You might as well ask for a ban on war (or, perhaps, aggression). I strongly recommend reading the SciAm July 2010 issue on robotic warfare. The US already operates from memory somewhere between 13,000 and 20,000 unmanned weapons. Unmanned war (obviously with some but ever less human supervision) IS the future of war. If you used a little lateral thinking, you'd realise that this may well be a v.g. thing - let robots kill each other rather than humans - whoever's robots win, wins the war. It would be interesting to compare Afghan./Vietnam - I imagine the kill count is considerably down (but correct me) - *because* of superior, more automated technology. *agi* | Archives https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ | Modifyhttps://www.listbox.com/member/?;Your Subscription http://www.listbox.com --- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=8660244-6e7fb59c Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] Walker Lake
Matt, On Mon, Aug 2, 2010 at 1:10 PM, Matt Mahoney matmaho...@yahoo.com wrote: Steve Richfield wrote: How about an international ban on the deployment of all unmanned and automated weapons? How about a ban on suicide bombers to level the playing field? Of course we already have that. Unfortunately, one begets the other. Hence, we seem to have a choice, neither or both. I vote for neither. 1984 has truly arrived. No it hasn't. People want public surveillance. I'm not sure what you mean by public surveillance. Monitoring private phone calls? Monitoring otherwise unused web cams? Monitoring your output when you use the toilet? Where, if anywhere, do YOU draw the line? It is also necessary for AGI. In order for machines to do what you want, they have to know what you know. Unfortunately, knowing everything, any use of this information will either be to my benefit, or my detriment. Do you foresee any way to limit use to only beneficial use? BTW, decades ago I developed the plan of, when my kids got in some sort of trouble in school or elsewhere, to represent their interests as well as possible, regardless of whether I agreed with them or not. This worked EXTREMELY well for me, and for several other families who have tried this. The point is that to successfully represent their interests, I had to know what was happening. Potential embarrassment and explainability limited the kids' actions. I wonder if the same would work for AGIs? In order for a global brain to use that knowledge, it has to be public. Again, where do you draw the line between public and private? AGI has to be a global brain because it is too expensive to build any other way, and because it would be too dangerous if the whole world didn't control it. I'm not sure what you mean by control. Here is the BIG question in my own mind, that I have asked in various ways, so far without any recognizable answer: There are plainly lots of things wrong with our society. We got here by doing what we wanted, and by having our representatives do what we wanted them to do. Clearly some social re-engineering is in our future, if we are to thrive in the foreseeable future. All changes are resisted by some, and I suspect that some needed changes will be resisted by most, and perhaps nearly everyone. Disaster scenarios aside, what would YOU have YOUR AGI do to navigate this future? To help guide your answer, I see that the various proposed systems of ethics would prevent breaking the eggs needed to make a good futuristic omelet. I suspect that completely democratic systems have run their course. Against this is letting AGI loose has its own unfathomable hazards. I've been hanging around here for quite a while, and I don't yet see any success path to work toward. I'm on your side in that any successful AGI would have to have the information and the POWER to succeed, akin to *Colossus, the Forbin Project*, which I personally see as more of a success story than a horror scenario. Absent that, AGIs will only add to our present problems. What is the success path that you see? Steve --- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=8660244-6e7fb59c Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] AGI Int'l Relations
Matt, On Mon, Aug 2, 2010 at 1:05 PM, Matt Mahoney matmaho...@yahoo.com wrote: Steve Richfield wrote: I would feel a **LOT** better if someone explained SOME scenario to eventually emerge from our current economic mess. What economic mess? http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=wb-wdictype=lstrail=falsenselm=hmet_y=ny_gdp_mktp_cdscale_y=linind_y=falserdim=countryidim=country:USAtdim=truetstart=-31561920tunit=Ytlen=48hl=endl=en Perhaps you failed to note the great disparity between the US and the World's performance since 2003, or that with each year, greater percentages of the GDP is going into fewer and fewer pockets. Kids starting out now don't really have a chance. http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=wb-wdimet=ny_gdp_mktp_cdtdim=truedl=enhl=enq=world+gdp#met=ny_gdp_mktp_cdidim=country:USAtdim=true Unemployment appears to be permanent and getting worse, When you pay people not to work, they are less inclined to work. That does NOT explain that there are MANY unemployed for every available job, and that many are falling off the end of their benefits with nothing to help them. This view may have been true long ago, but it is now dated and wrong. Steve --- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=8660244-6e7fb59c Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] AGI Int'l Relations
Jan, Ian, et al, On Sun, Aug 1, 2010 at 1:18 PM, Jan Klauck jkla...@uni-osnabrueck.dewrote: It seems that *getting things right* is not a priority for politicians. Keeping things running is the priority. ... and there it is in crystal clarity - how things get SO screwed up in small increments, sometimes over centuries of time. If nothing else, the Prisoner's Dilemma and Reverse Reductio ad Absurdum teach us that advanced logical methods can NOT be applied to solving real-world problems UNLESS the participants first understand the basics of the methods. In short, an AGI in a world of idiots would fare far worse, than a would an effective teacher who is familiar with advanced logical methods. Hence, the expectation of some sort of millennial effect when AGIs arrive is probably misplaced. Note the parallels between Buddhism and the Prisoner's Dilemma - as both teach to presume overall intelligence from the other side. *Idea:* Suppose the appropriate people got together and created the IR Certification Guide that explains both the basics and the various advanced logical methods. A simple on-line test could be created, that when passed produces a suitable-for-framing certificate of competence. I suspect that this tool could work better than any AGI in the absence of such a tool. On another note: How can you, the participants on this forum, hope to ever bring stability That depends on your definition of stability. Progress is often triggered by instability and leads to new forms of instability. There shouldn't be too much instability in the same sense that too much stability is also bad. I agree with these statements, but we may disagree with where they are leading. With too much stability, it is possible to drive systems into the ground SO badly that they can't recover, or take insanely long times to recover. Some past days-long power failures and our present economy are two example. Indeed, short of something really radical, there seems to be NO HOPE of ever curing the present unemployment situation. Stability seems to have destroyed future generations' expectation of life-long gainful employment. My simple (and completely unacceptable) cure for this is to tax savings, to force the money back into the economy. It would be trivial to administer, as banks could easily collect the tax, and just 1% would probably fix things. Note that the Koran has Zakat, which is a 5% tax on savings to provide for the poor. In short, it is socialism! It has worked (depending on your definition of worked) for ~1,400 years. Steve --- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=8660244-6e7fb59c Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] AGI Int'l Relations
Jan, On Fri, Jul 30, 2010 at 4:47 PM, Jan Klauck jkla...@uni-osnabrueck.dewrote: This brings me to where I came in. How do you deal with irrational decision making. I was hoping that social simulation would be seeking to provide answers. This does not seem to be the case. Have you ever taken a dispute, completely deconstructed it to determine its structure, engineered a prospective solution, and attempted to implement it? I have. Sometimes successfully, and sometimes not so successfully. First, take a look at Nova's *Mind Over Money* episode: http://video.pbs.org/video/1479100777/ The message here isn't so much that people create unstable systems around themselves, but rather, that the (present) systems sciences predictably lead to unstable systems. Getting people to act in what may seem at the moment to be ways that are contrary to their interests is a MAJOR challenge. Indeed, much of the AGI discussion on this and other forums concerns ways of *stopping* AGIs from effectively intervening in such instabilities. How can you, the participants on this forum, hope to ever bring stability to our world when one of your own goals is to preserve the very sources of those instabilities? IMHO the underlying problem is mostly too limited of intelligence in most people. They are simply unable to comprehend the paths to the very things that they are seeking, and hence have absolutely no hope of success. You can't write a good Chess playing program unless you have first been a serious chess player. Similarly, I suspect that demonstrated skill in IR is a prerequisite to creating any sort of effective IR program. Hence, I would welcome an opportunity to play on that field, as I suspect others on this forum might welcome. This should be facilitated, and then watch to see which approaches seem to at least sometimes work, and which seem to predictably fail. Once past this, I suspect that the route to an effective IR program will become more obvious. Models of limited rationality (like bounded rationality) are already used, e.g., in resource mangement land use studies, peace and conflict studies and some more. These all seem to incorporate the very presumptions that underlie the problems at hand. For example, the apparently obvious cure for global warming is to return the upwind coastal strips to forests and move human development inland past the first mountain range. This approach should turn the great deserts green (again), provide an order of magnitude more food, and consume the CO2 from all of the air and oil still in the ground, plus lots of coal in addition. Of course no one seriously considers this, because it involves bulldozing, for example, most of the human development in America between the Pacific Ocean and the top of the Cascade Mountains. While the rewards almost certainly exceed the cost, the problem is that the corporations who own these developments would commit limitless resources to influence the best government that money can buy to stop any such project. The problem with those models is to say _how_much_ irrationality there is. YES. Some say that my proposal for bulldozing the upwind strips of the continents is irrational, not because it won't work, but because it hasn't been experimentally proven. Once past computer simulations, the only way to prove it is to try it. Judge for yourself which side of this argument is irrational. We can assume (and model) perfect rationality I don't think so! You may also question this after viewing the NOVA episode above. and then measure the gap. Empirically most actors aren't fully irrational or behave random, so they approach the rational assumptions. What's often more missing is that actors lack information or the means to utilize them. In short, they lack a lot of everything needed to make rational decisions, not the least of which are rational questions to decide. Most questions in our world contain significant content of irrational presumptions, yet people feel compelled to participate in the irrationality and decide those questions. Any (competent) AGI would REFUSE TO ANSWER, and would first redirect attention to the irrational content of the questions. Steve --- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=8660244-6e7fb59c Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] Seeking Is-a Functionality
Arthur, Your call for an AGI roadmap is well targeted. I suspect that others here have their own, somewhat different roadmaps. These should all be merged, like decks of cards being shuffled together, maybe with percentages attached, so that people could announce that, say, I am 31% of the way to having an AGI. At least this would provide SOME metric for progress. This would apparently place Ben in a awkward position, because on the one hand he is somewhat resistant to precisely defining his efforts, while on the other hand he desperately needs to be able to demonstrate some progress as he works toward something that is useful/salable. Is a is too vague, e.g. in A robot is a machine, it is unclear whether robots and machines are simply two different words for the same thing, or whether robots are a member of the class known as machines. There are also other more perverse potential meanings, e.g. that a single robot is a machine, but that multiple robots are something different, e.g. a junk pile. In Dr. Eliza, I (attempt to) deal with ambiguous statements by having the final parser demand an unambiguous statement, and utilize my idiom resolver to recognize common ambiguous statements and fill in the gaps with clearer words. Hence, simple unambiguous statements and common gapping works, but less common gapping fails, as do complex statements that can't be split into 2 or more simple statements. I suspect that you may be heading toward the common brick wall of paradigm limitation, where you initially adopt an oversimplified paradigm to get something to work, and then run into the limitations of that oversimplified paradigm. For example, Dr. Eliza is up against its own paradigm limitations that we have discussed here. Hence, it may be time for some paradigm overhaul if your efforts are to continue smoothly ahead. I hope this helps. Steve = On Tue, Jul 20, 2010 at 7:20 AM, A. T. Murray menti...@scn.org wrote: Tues.20.JUL.2010 -- Seeking Is-a Functionality Recently our overall goal in coding MindForth has been to build up an ability for the AI to engage in self-referential thought. In fact, SelfReferentialThought is the Milestone next to be achieved on the RoadMap of the Google Code MindForth project. However, we are jumping ahead a little when we allow ourselves to take up the enticing challenge of coding Is-a functionality when we have work left over to perform on fleshing out question-word queries and pronominal gender assignments. Such tasks are the loathsome scutwork of coding an AI Mind, so we reinvigorate our sense of AI ambition by breaking new ground and by leaving old ground to be conquered more thoroughly as time goes by. We simply want our budding AI mind to think thoughts like the following. A robin is a bird. Birds have wings. Andru is a robot. A robot is a machine. We are not aiming directly at inference or logical thinking here. We want rather to increase the scope of self-referential AI conversations, so that the AI can discuss classes and categories of entities in the world. If people ask the AI what it is, and it responds that it is a robot and that a robot is a machine, we want the conversation to flow unimpeded and naturally in any direction that occurs to man or machine. We have already built in the underlying capabilities such as the usage of articles like a or the, and the usage of verbs of being. Teaching the AI how to use am or is or are was a major problem that we worried about solving during quite a few years of anticipation of encountering an impassable or at least difficult roadblock on our AGI Roadmap. Now we regard introducing Is-a functionality not so much as an insurmountable ordeal as an enjoyable challenge that will vastly expand the self-referential wherewithal of the incipient AI. Arthur -- http://robots.net/person/AI4U/diary/22.html --- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?; Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com --- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=8660244-6e7fb59c Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] Is there any Contest or test to ensure that a System is AGI?
Deepak, An intermediate step is the reverse Turing test (RTT), wherein people or teams of people attempt to emulate an AGI. I suspect that from such a competition would come a better idea as to what to expect from an AGI. I have attempted in the past to drum up interest in a RTT, but so far, no one seems interested. Do you want to play a game?! Steve On Sun, Jul 18, 2010 at 5:15 AM, deepakjnath deepakjn...@gmail.com wrote: I wanted to know if there is any bench mark test that can really convince majority of today's AGIers that a System is true AGI? Is there some real prize like the XPrize for AGI or AI in general? thanks, Deepak *agi* | Archives https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ | Modifyhttps://www.listbox.com/member/?;Your Subscription http://www.listbox.com --- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=8660244-6e7fb59c Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
[agi] Mechanical Analogy for Neural Operation!
Everyone has heard about the water analogy for electrical operation. I have a mechanical analogy for neural operation that just might be solid enough to compute at least some characteristics optimally. No, I am NOT proposing building mechanical contraptions, just using the concept to compute neuronal characteristics (or AGI formulas for learning). Suppose neurons were mechanical contraptions, that receive inputs and communicate outputs via mechanical movements. If one or more of the neurons connected to an output of a neuron, can't make sense of a given input given its other inputs, then its mechanism would physically resist the several inputs that didn't make mutual sense because its mechanism would jam, with the resistance possibly coming from some downstream neuron. This would utilize position to resolve opposing forces, e.g. one force being the observed inputs, and the other force being that they don't make sense, suggest some painful outcome, etc. In short, this would enforce the sort of equation over the present formulaic view of neurons (and AGI coding) that I have suggested in past postings may be present, and show that the math may not be all that challenging. Uncertainty would be expressed in stiffness/flexibility, computed limitations would be handled with over-running clutches, etc. Propagation of forces would come close (perfect?) to being able to identify just where in a complex network something should change to learn as efficiently as possible. Once the force concentrates at some point, it then gives, something slips or bends, to unjam the mechanism. Thus, learning is effected. Note that this suggests little difference between forward propagation and backwards propagation, though real-world wet design considerations would clearly prefer fast mechanisms for forward propagation, and compact mechanisms for backwards propagation. Epiphany or mania? Any thoughts? Steve --- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=8660244-6e7fb59c Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] Reward function vs utility
To all, There may be a fundamental misdirection here on this thread, for your consideration... There have been some very rare cases where people have lost the use of one hemisphere of their brains, and then subsequently recovered, usually with the help of recently-developed clot-removal surgery. What they report seems to be completely at odds with the present discussion. I will summarize and probably overgeneralize, because there aren't many such survivors. One was a brain researcher who subsequently wrote a book, about which I heard a review on the radio, but I don't remember the details like title or name. Hopefully, one of you has found and read this book. It appears that one hemisphere is a *completely* passive observer, that does *not* even bother to distinguish you and not-you, other than noting a probable boundary. The other hemisphere concerns itself with manipulating the world, regardless of whether particular pieces of it are you or not-you. It seems unlikely that reward could have any effect at all on the passive observer hemisphere. In the case of the author of the book, apparently the manipulating hemisphere was knocked out of commission for a while, and then slowly recovered. This allowed her to see the passively observed world, without the overlay of the manipulating hemisphere. Obviously, this involved severe physical impairment until she recovered. Note that AFAIK all of the AGI efforts are egocentric, while half of our brains are concerned with passively filtering/understanding the world enough to apply egocentric logic. Note further that since the two hemispheres are built from the same types of neurons, that the computations needed to do these two very different tasks are performed by the same wet-stuff. There is apparently some sort of advanced Turing machine sort of concept going on in wetware. This sounds to me like a must-read for any AGIer, and I certainly would have read it, had I been one. Hence, I see goal direction, reward, etc., as potentially useful only in some tiny part of our brains. Any thoughts? Steve --- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=8660244-6e7fb59c Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] Questions for an AGI
Ian, Travis, etc. On Mon, Jun 28, 2010 at 6:42 AM, Ian Parker ianpark...@gmail.com wrote: On 27 June 2010 22:21, Travis Lenting travlent...@gmail.com wrote: I think crime has to be made impossible even for an enhanced humans first. If our enhancement was Internet based it could be turned off if we were about to commit a crime. You really should have said unenhanced humans. If my conversation (see above) was about jihad and terrorism AI would provide a route for the security services. I think you are muddled here. Anyone who could suggest making crime impossible, anyone who could respond to such nonsense other than pointing out that it is nonsense, is SO far removed from reality that it is hard to imagine that they function in society. Here are some points for those who don't see this as obvious: 1. Much/most crime is committed by people who see little/no other rational choice. 2. Crime is a state of mind. Almost any act would be reasonable under SOME bizarre circumstances perceived by the perpetrator. It isn't the actions, but rather the THOUGHT that makes it a crime. 3. Courts are there to decide complex issues like necessity (e.g. self defense or defense of others), understanding (e.g. mental competence), and the myriad other issues needed to establish a particular act as a crime. 4. Crimes are defined through a legislative process, by the best government that money can buy. This would simply consign everything (and everyone) to the wealthy people who have bought the government. Prepare for slavery. 5. Our world is already so over-constrained that it is IMPOSSIBLE to live without violating any laws. Is the proposal to make impossible anything that could conceivably be construed as a crime, or to make impossible anything that couldn't be construed as anything but a crime? Even these two extremes would have significant implementation problems. Anyway, I am sending you two back to kindergarten. Steve --- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=8660244-6e7fb59c Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] Hutter - A fundamental misdirection?
Rob, I just LOVE opaque postings, because they identify people who see things differently than I do. I'm not sure what you are saying here, so I'll make some random responses to exhibit my ignorance and elicit more explanation. On Mon, Jun 28, 2010 at 9:53 AM, rob levy r.p.l...@gmail.com wrote: In order to have perceptual/conceptual similarity, it might make sense that there is distance metric over conceptual spaces mapping It sounds like this is a finer measure than the dimensionality that I was referencing. However, I don't see how to reduce anything as quantized as dimensionality into finer measures. Can you say some more about this? (ala Gardenfors or something like this theory) underlying how the experience of reasoning through is carried out. This has the advantage of being motivated by neuroscience findings (which are seldom convincing, but in this case it is basic solid neuroscience research) that there are topographic maps in the brain. However, different people's brains, even the brains of identical twins, have DIFFERENT mappings. This would seem to mandate experience-formed topology. Since these conceptual spaces that structure sensorimotor expectation/prediction (including in higher order embodied exploration of concepts I think) are multidimensional spaces, it seems likely that some kind of neural computation over these spaces must occur, I agree. though I wonder what it actually would be in terms of neurons, (and if that matters). I don't see any route to the answer except via neurons. But that is different from what would be considered quantitative reasoning, because from the phenomenological perspective the person is training sensorimotor expectations by perceiving and doing. And creative conceptual shifts (or recognition of novel perceptual categories) can also be explained by this feedback between trained topographic maps and embodied interaction with environment (experienced at the ecological level as sensorimotor expectations (driven by neural maps). Sensorimotor expectation is the basis of dynamics of perception and coceptualization). All of which is computation of various sorts, the basics of which need to be understood. Steve = On Sun, Jun 27, 2010 at 7:24 PM, Ben Goertzel b...@goertzel.org wrote: On Sun, Jun 27, 2010 at 7:09 PM, Steve Richfield steve.richfi...@gmail.com wrote: Ben, On Sun, Jun 27, 2010 at 3:47 PM, Ben Goertzel b...@goertzel.org wrote: know what dimensional analysis is, but it would be great if you could give an example of how it's useful for everyday commonsense reasoning such as, say, a service robot might need to do to figure out how to clean a house... How much detergent will it need to clean the floors? Hmmm, we need to know ounces. We have the length and width of the floor, and the bottle says to use 1 oz/M^2. How could we manipulate two M-dimensioned quantities and 1 oz/M^2 dimensioned quantity to get oz? The only way would seem to be to multiply all three numbers together to get ounces. This WITHOUT understanding things like surface area, utilization, etc. I think that the El Salvadorean maids who come to clean my house occasionally, solve this problem without any dimensional analysis or any quantitative reasoning at all... Probably they solve it based on nearest-neighbor matching against past experiences cleaning other dirty floors with water in similarly sized and shaped buckets... -- ben g *agi* | Archives https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ | Modifyhttps://www.listbox.com/member/?;Your Subscription http://www.listbox.com *agi* | Archives https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ | Modifyhttps://www.listbox.com/member/?;Your Subscription http://www.listbox.com --- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=8660244-6e7fb59c Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] Hutter - A fundamental misdirection?
Ben, What I saw as my central thesis is that propagating carefully conceived dimensionality information along with classical information could greatly improve the cognitive process, by FORCING reasonable physics WITHOUT having to understand (by present concepts of what understanding means) physics. Hutter was just a foil to explain my thought. Note again my comments regarding how physicists and astronomers understand some processes though dimensional analysis that involves NONE of the sorts of understanding that you might think necessary, yet can predictably come up with the right answers. Are you up on the basics of dimensional analysis? The reality is that it is quite imperfect, but is often able to yield a short list of answers, with the correct one being somewhere in the list. Usually, the wrong answers are wildly wrong (they are probably computing something, but NOT what you might be interested in), and are hence easily eliminated. I suspect that neurons might be doing much the same, as could formulaic implementations like (most) present AGI efforts. This might explain natural architecture and guide human architectural efforts. In short, instead of a pot of neurons, we might instead have a pot of dozens of types of neurons that each have their own complex rules regarding what other types of neurons they can connect to, and how they process information. Architecture might involve deciding how many of each type to provide, and what types to put adjacent to what other types, rather than the more detailed concept now usually thought to exist. Thanks for helping me wring my thought out here. Steve = On Sun, Jun 27, 2010 at 2:49 PM, Ben Goertzel b...@goertzel.org wrote: Hi Steve, A few comments... 1) Nobody is trying to implement Hutter's AIXI design, it's a mathematical design intended as a proof of principle 2) Within Hutter's framework, one calculates the shortest program that explains the data, where shortest is measured on Turing machine M. Given a sufficient number of observations, the choice of M doesn't matter and AIXI will eventually learn any computable reward pattern. However, choosing the right M can greatly accelerate learning. In the case of a physical AGI system, choosing M to incorporate the correct laws of physics would obviously accelerate learning considerably. 3) Many AGI designs try to incorporate prior understanding of the structure properties of the physical world, in various ways. I have a whole chapter on this in my forthcoming book on OpenCog E.g. OpenCog's design includes a physics-engine, which is used directly and to aid with inferential extrapolations... So I agree with most of your points, but I don't find them original except in phrasing ;) ... ben On Sun, Jun 27, 2010 at 2:30 PM, Steve Richfield steve.richfi...@gmail.com wrote: Ben, et al, *I think I may finally grok the fundamental misdirection that current AGI thinking has taken! *This is a bit subtle, and hence subject to misunderstanding. Therefore I will first attempt to explain what I see, WITHOUT so much trying to convince you (or anyone) that it is necessarily correct. Once I convey my vision, then let the chips fall where they may. On Sun, Jun 27, 2010 at 6:35 AM, Ben Goertzel b...@goertzel.org wrote: Hutter's AIXI for instance works [very roughly speaking] by choosing the most compact program that, based on historical data, would have yielded maximum reward ... and there it is! What did I see? Example applicable to the lengthy following discussion: 1 - 2 2 - 2 3 - 2 4 - 2 5 - ? What is ?. Now, I'll tell you that the left column represents the distance along a 4.5 unit long table, and the right column represents the distance above the floor that you will be as your walk the length of the table. Knowing this, without ANY supporting physical experience, I would guess ? to be zero, or maybe a little more if I were to step off of the table and land onto something lower, like the shoes that I left there. In an imaginary world where a GI boots up with a complete understanding of physics, etc., we wouldn't prefer the simplest program at all, but rather the simplest representation of the real world that is not physics/math * in*consistent with our observations. All observations would be presumed to be consistent with the response curves of our sensors, showing a world in which Newton's laws prevail, etc. Armed with these presumptions, our physics-complete AGI would look for the simplest set of *UN*observed phenomena that explained the observed phenomena. This theory of a physics-complete AGI seems undeniable, but of course, we are NOT born physics-complete - or are we?! This all comes down to the limits of representational math. At great risk of hand-waving on a keyboard, I'll try to explain by pseudo-translating the concepts into NN/AGI terms. We all know about layering and columns in neural systems
Re: [agi] Hutter - A fundamental misdirection?
Ben, On Sun, Jun 27, 2010 at 3:47 PM, Ben Goertzel b...@goertzel.org wrote: know what dimensional analysis is, but it would be great if you could give an example of how it's useful for everyday commonsense reasoning such as, say, a service robot might need to do to figure out how to clean a house... How much detergent will it need to clean the floors? Hmmm, we need to know ounces. We have the length and width of the floor, and the bottle says to use 1 oz/M^2. How could we manipulate two M-dimensioned quantities and 1 oz/M^2 dimensioned quantity to get oz? The only way would seem to be to multiply all three numbers together to get ounces. This WITHOUT understanding things like surface area, utilization, etc. Of course, throw in a few other available measures and it become REALLY easy to come up with several wrong answers. This method does NOT avoid wrong answers, it only provides a mechanism to have the right answer among them. While this may be a challenge for dispensing detergent (especially if you include the distance from the earth to the sun as one of your available measures), it is little problem for learning. I was more concerned with learning than with solving. I believe that dimensional analysis could help learning a LOT, by maximally constraining what is used as a basis for learning, without throwing the baby out with the bathwater, i.e. applying so much constraint that a good solution can't climb out of the process. Steve On Sun, Jun 27, 2010 at 6:43 PM, Steve Richfield steve.richfi...@gmail.comwrote: Ben, What I saw as my central thesis is that propagating carefully conceived dimensionality information along with classical information could greatly improve the cognitive process, by FORCING reasonable physics WITHOUT having to understand (by present concepts of what understanding means) physics. Hutter was just a foil to explain my thought. Note again my comments regarding how physicists and astronomers understand some processes though dimensional analysis that involves NONE of the sorts of understanding that you might think necessary, yet can predictably come up with the right answers. Are you up on the basics of dimensional analysis? The reality is that it is quite imperfect, but is often able to yield a short list of answers, with the correct one being somewhere in the list. Usually, the wrong answers are wildly wrong (they are probably computing something, but NOT what you might be interested in), and are hence easily eliminated. I suspect that neurons might be doing much the same, as could formulaic implementations like (most) present AGI efforts. This might explain natural architecture and guide human architectural efforts. In short, instead of a pot of neurons, we might instead have a pot of dozens of types of neurons that each have their own complex rules regarding what other types of neurons they can connect to, and how they process information. Architecture might involve deciding how many of each type to provide, and what types to put adjacent to what other types, rather than the more detailed concept now usually thought to exist. Thanks for helping me wring my thought out here. Steve = On Sun, Jun 27, 2010 at 2:49 PM, Ben Goertzel b...@goertzel.org wrote: Hi Steve, A few comments... 1) Nobody is trying to implement Hutter's AIXI design, it's a mathematical design intended as a proof of principle 2) Within Hutter's framework, one calculates the shortest program that explains the data, where shortest is measured on Turing machine M. Given a sufficient number of observations, the choice of M doesn't matter and AIXI will eventually learn any computable reward pattern. However, choosing the right M can greatly accelerate learning. In the case of a physical AGI system, choosing M to incorporate the correct laws of physics would obviously accelerate learning considerably. 3) Many AGI designs try to incorporate prior understanding of the structure properties of the physical world, in various ways. I have a whole chapter on this in my forthcoming book on OpenCog E.g. OpenCog's design includes a physics-engine, which is used directly and to aid with inferential extrapolations... So I agree with most of your points, but I don't find them original except in phrasing ;) ... ben On Sun, Jun 27, 2010 at 2:30 PM, Steve Richfield steve.richfi...@gmail.com wrote: Ben, et al, *I think I may finally grok the fundamental misdirection that current AGI thinking has taken! *This is a bit subtle, and hence subject to misunderstanding. Therefore I will first attempt to explain what I see, WITHOUT so much trying to convince you (or anyone) that it is necessarily correct. Once I convey my vision, then let the chips fall where they may. On Sun, Jun 27, 2010 at 6:35 AM, Ben Goertzel b...@goertzel.org wrote: Hutter's AIXI for instance works [very roughly speaking] by choosing the most
Re: [agi] Questions for an AGI
Travis, The AGI world seems to be cleanly divided into two groups: 1. People (like Ben) who feel as you do, and aren't at all interested or willing to look at the really serious lapses in logic that underlie this approach. Note that there is a similar belief in Buddhism, akin to the prisoners dilemma, that if everyone just decides to respect everyone else, that the world will be a really nice place. The problem is, it doesn't work, and it can't work for some sound logical reasons that were unknown thousands of years ago when those beliefs were first advanced, and are STILL unknown to most of the present-day population, and... 2. People (like me) who see that this is a really insane, dangerous, and delusional belief system, as it encourages activities that are every bit as dangerous as DIY thermonuclear weapons. Sure, you aren't likely to build a successful H-bomb in your basement using heavy water that you separated using old automobile batteries, but should we encourage you to even try? Unfortunately, there is ~zero useful communication between these two groups. For example, Ben explains that he has heard all of the horror scenarios for AGIs, and I believe that he has, yet he continues in this direction for reasons that he is too busy to explain in detail. I have viewed some of his presentations, e.g. at the 2009 Singularity conference. There, he provides no glimmer of any reason why his approach isn't predictably suicidal if/when an AGI ever comes into existence, beyond what you outlined, e.g. imperfect protective mechanisms that would only serve to become their own points of contention between future AGIs. What if some accident disables an AGI's protective mechanisms? Would there be some major contention between Ben's AGI and Osama bin Laden's AGI? How about those nasty little areas where our present social rules enforce specie-destroying dysgenic activity? Ultimately and eventually, why should AGIs give a damn about us? Steve = On Fri, Jun 25, 2010 at 1:25 PM, Travis Lenting travlent...@gmail.comwrote: I hope I don't miss represent him but I agree with Ben (at least my interpretation) when he said, We can ask it questions like, 'how can we make a better A(G)I that can serve us in more different ways without becoming dangerous'...It can help guide us along the path to a positive singularity. I'm pretty sure he was also saying at first it should just be a question answering machine with a reliable goal system and stop the development if it has an unstable one before it gets to smart. I like the idea that we should create an automated cross disciplinary scientist and engineer (if you even separate the two) and that NLP not modeled after the human brain is the best proposal for a benevolent and resourceful super intelligence that enables a positive singularity and all its unforeseen perks. On Wed, Jun 23, 2010 at 11:04 PM, The Wizard key.unive...@gmail.comwrote: If you could ask an AGI anything, what would you ask it? -- Carlos A Mejia Taking life one singularity at a time. www.Transalchemy.com *agi* | Archives https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ | Modifyhttps://www.listbox.com/member/?;Your Subscription http://www.listbox.com *agi* | Archives https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ | Modifyhttps://www.listbox.com/member/?;Your Subscription http://www.listbox.com --- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=8660244-6e7fb59c Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] Questions for an AGI
Fellow Cylons, I sure hope SOMEONE is assembling a list from these responses, because this is exactly the sort of stuff that I (or someone) would need to run a Reverse Turing Test (RTT) competition. Steve --- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=8660244-6e7fb59c Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] A fundamental limit on intelligence?!
Abram, On Mon, Jun 21, 2010 at 8:38 AM, Abram Demski abramdem...@gmail.com wrote: Steve, You didn't mention this, so I guess I will: larger animals do generally have larger brains, coming close to a fixed brain/body ratio. Smarter animals appear to be the ones with a higher brain/body ratio rather than simply a larger brain. This to me suggests that the amount of sensory information and muscle coordination necessary is the most important determiner of the amount of processing power needed. There could be other interpretations, however. It is REALLY hard to compare the intelligence of various animals, because of their innate behavior being overlaid. For example, based on ability to follow instruction, cats must be REALLY stupid. It's also pretty important to say that brains are expensive to fuel. It's probably the case that other animals didn't get as smart as us because the additional food they could get per ounce brain was less than the additional food needed to support an ounce of brain. Humans were in a situation in which it was more. So, I don't think your argument from other animals supports your hypothesis terribly well. Presuming for a moment that you are right, then there will be no singularity! No, this is NOT a reductio ad absurdum proof either way. Why no singularity? If there really is a limit to the value of intelligence, then why should we think that there will be anything special about super-intelligence? Perhaps we have been deluding ourselves because we want to think that the reason we aren't all rich is because we just aren't smart enough, when in reality some entirely different phenomenon may be key? Have YOU observed that success in life is highly correlated to intelligence? One way around your instability if it exists would be (similar to your hemisphere suggestion) split the network into a number of individuals which cooperate through very low-bandwidth connections. While helping breadth of analysis, this would seem to absolutely limit analysis depth to that of one individual. This would be like an organization of humans working together. Hence, multiagent systems would have a higher stability limit. Providing they don't get into a war of some sort. However, it is still the case that we hit a serious diminishing-returns scenario once we needed to start doing this (since the low-bandwidth connections convey so much less info, we need waaay more processing power for every IQ point or whatever). I see more problems with analysis depth than with bandwidth limitations. And, once these organizations got really big, it's quite plausible that they'd have their own stability issues. Yes. Steve On Mon, Jun 21, 2010 at 11:19 AM, Steve Richfield steve.richfi...@gmail.com wrote: There has been an ongoing presumption that more brain (or computer) means more intelligence. I would like to question that underlying presumption. That being the case, why don't elephants and other large creatures have really gigantic brains? This seems to be SUCH an obvious evolutionary step. There are all sorts of network-destroying phenomena that rise from complex networks, e.g. phase shift oscillators there circular analysis paths enforce themselves, computational noise is endlessly analyzed, etc. We know that our own brains are just barely stable, as flashing lights throw some people into epileptic attacks, etc. Perhaps network stability is the intelligence limiter? If so, then we aren't going to get anywhere without first fully understanding it. Suppose for a moment that theoretically perfect neurons could work in a brain of limitless size, but their imperfections accumulate (or multiply) to destroy network operation when you get enough of them together. Brains have grown larger because neurons have evolved to become more nearly perfect, without having yet (or ever) reaching perfection. Hence, evolution may have struck a balance, where less intelligence directly impairs survivability, and greater intelligence impairs network stability, and hence indirectly impairs survivability. If the above is indeed the case, then AGI and related efforts don't stand a snowball's chance in hell of ever outperforming humans, UNTIL the underlying network stability theory is well enough understood to perform perfectly to digital precision. This wouldn't necessarily have to address all aspects of intelligence, but would at minimum have to address large-scale network stability. One possibility is chopping large networks into pieces, e.g. the hemispheres of our own brains. However, like multi-core CPUs, there is work for only so many CPUs/hemispheres. There are some medium-scale network similes in the world, e.g. the power grid. However, there they have high-level central control and lots of crashes, so there may not be much to learn from them. Note in passing that I am working with some non-AGIers on power grid stability
Re: [agi] A fundamental limit on intelligence?!
John, Your comments appear to be addressing reliability, rather than stability... On Mon, Jun 21, 2010 at 9:12 AM, John G. Rose johnr...@polyplexic.comwrote: -Original Message- From: Steve Richfield [mailto:steve.richfi...@gmail.com] My underlying thought here is that we may all be working on the wrong problems. Instead of working on the particular analysis methods (AGI) or self-organization theory (NN), perhaps if someone found a solution to large- network stability, then THAT would show everyone the ways to their respective goals. For a distributed AGI this is a fundamental problem. Difference is that a power grid is such a fixed network. Not really. Switches may connect or disconnect Canada, equipment is constantly failing and being repaired, etc. In any case, this doesn't seem to be related to stability, other than it being a lot easier to analyze a fixed network rather than a variable network. A distributed AGI need not be that fixed, it could lose chunks of itself but grow them out somewhere else. Though a distributed AGI could be required to run as a fixed network. Some traditional telecommunications networks are power grid like. They have a drastic amount of stability and healing functions built-in as have been added over time. However, there is no feedback, so stability isn't even a potential issue. Solutions for large-scale network stabilities would vary per network topology, function, etc.. However, there ARE some universal rules, like the 12db/octave requirement. Virtual networks play a large part, this would be related to the network's ability to reconstruct itself meaning knowing how to heal, reroute, optimize and grow.. Again, this doesn't seem to relate to millisecond-by-millisecond stability. Steve --- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=8660244-6e7fb59c Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] A fundamental limit on intelligence?!
Jim, Yours is the prevailing view in the industry. However, it doesn't seem to work. Even given months of time to analyze past failures, they are often unable to divine rules that would have reliably avoided the problems. In short, until you adequately understand the system that your sensors are sensing, all the readings in the world won't help. Further, when a system is fundamentally unstable, you must have a control system that completely deals with the instability, or it absolutely will fail. The present system meets neither of these criteria. There is another MAJOR issue. Presuming a power control center in the middle of the U.S., the round-trip time at the speed of light to each coast is ~16ms, or two half-cycles at 60Hz. In control terms, that is an eternity. Distributed control requires fundamental stability to function reliably. Times can be improved by having separate control systems for each coast, but the interface would still have to meet fundamental stability criteria (like limiting the rates of change), and our long coasts would still require a full half-cycle of time to respond. Note that faults must be responded to QUICKLY to save the equipment, and so cannot be left to central control systems to operate. So, we end up with the system we now have, that does NOT meet reasonable stability criteria. Hence, we may forever have occasional outages until the system is radically re-conceived. Steve == On Mon, Jun 21, 2010 at 9:17 AM, Jim Bromer jimbro...@gmail.com wrote: I think a real world solution to grid stability would require greater use of sensory devices (and a some sensory-feedback devices). I really don't know for sure, but my assumption is that electrical grid management has relied mostly on the electrical reactions of the grid itself, and here you are saying that is just not good enough for critical fluctuations in 2010. So while software is also necessary of course, the first change in how grid management should be done is through greater reliance on off-the-grid (or at minimal backup on-grid) sensory devices. I am quite confident, without knowing anything about the subject, that that is what needs to be done because I understand a little about how different groups of people work and I have seen how sensory devices like gps and lidar have fundamentally changed AI projects because they allowed time sensitive critical analysis that was too slow and for contemporary AI to solve. 100 years from now, electrical grid management won't require another layer of sensors because the software analysis of grid fluctuations will be sufficient. On the other hand, grid managers will not remove these additional layers of sensors from the grid a hundred years from now anymore than we telephone engineers would suggest that maybe they should stop using fiber optics because they could get back to 1990 fiber optic capacity and reliability using copper wire with today's switching and software devices. Jim Bromer On Mon, Jun 21, 2010 at 11:19 AM, Steve Richfield steve.richfi...@gmail.com wrote: There has been an ongoing presumption that more brain (or computer) means more intelligence. I would like to question that underlying presumption. That being the case, why don't elephants and other large creatures have really gigantic brains? This seems to be SUCH an obvious evolutionary step. There are all sorts of network-destroying phenomena that rise from complex networks, e.g. phase shift oscillators there circular analysis paths enforce themselves, computational noise is endlessly analyzed, etc. We know that our own brains are just barely stable, as flashing lights throw some people into epileptic attacks, etc. Perhaps network stability is the intelligence limiter? If so, then we aren't going to get anywhere without first fully understanding it. Suppose for a moment that theoretically perfect neurons could work in a brain of limitless size, but their imperfections accumulate (or multiply) to destroy network operation when you get enough of them together. Brains have grown larger because neurons have evolved to become more nearly perfect, without having yet (or ever) reaching perfection. Hence, evolution may have struck a balance, where less intelligence directly impairs survivability, and greater intelligence impairs network stability, and hence indirectly impairs survivability. If the above is indeed the case, then AGI and related efforts don't stand a snowball's chance in hell of ever outperforming humans, UNTIL the underlying network stability theory is well enough understood to perform perfectly to digital precision. This wouldn't necessarily have to address all aspects of intelligence, but would at minimum have to address large-scale network stability. One possibility is chopping large networks into pieces, e.g. the hemispheres of our own brains. However, like multi-core CPUs, there is work for only so many CPUs/hemispheres
[agi] Formulaic vs. Equation AGI
One constant in ALL proposed methods leading to computational intelligence is formulaic operation, where agents, elements, neurons, etc., process inputs to produce outputs. There is scant biological evidence for this, and plenty of evidence for a balanced equation operation. Note that unbalancing one side, e.g. by injecting current, would result in a responding imbalance on the other side, so that synapses might (erroneously) appear to be one-way. However, there is plenty of evidence that information flows both ways, e.g. retrograde flow of information to support learning. Even looking at seemingly one-way things like the olfactory nerve, there are axons going both ways. No, I don't have any sort of comprehensive balanced-equation theory of intelligent operation, but I can see the interesting possibility. Suppose that the key to life is not competition, but rather is fitting into the world. Perhaps we don't so much observe things as orchestrate them to our needs. Hence, we and our world are in a gigantic loop, adjusting our outputs to achieve balancing characteristics in our inputs. Imbalances precipitate changes in action to achieve balance. The only difference between us and our world is implementation detail. We do our part, and it does its part. I'm sure that there are Zen Buddhists out there who would just LOVE this yin-yang view of things. Any thoughts? Steve --- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=8660244-6e7fb59c Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] A fundamental limit on intelligence?!
John, On Mon, Jun 21, 2010 at 10:06 AM, John G. Rose johnr...@polyplexic.comwrote: Solutions for large-scale network stabilities would vary per network topology, function, etc.. However, there ARE some universal rules, like the 12db/octave requirement. Really? Do networks such as botnets really care about this? Or does it apply? Anytime negative feedback can become positive feedback because of delays or phase shifts, this becomes an issue. Many competent EE people fail to see the phase shifting that many decision processes can introduce, e.g. by responding as quickly as possible, finite speed makes finite delays and sharp frequency cutoffs, resulting in instabilities at those frequency cutoff points because of violation of the 12db/octave rule. Of course, this ONLY applies in feedback systems and NOT in forward-only systems, except at the real-world point of feedback, e.g. the bots themselves. Of course, there is the big question of just what it is that is being attenuated in the bowels of an intelligent system. Usually, it is computational delays making sharp frequency-limited attenuation at their response speeds. Every gamer is well aware of the oscillations that long ping times can introduce in people's (and intelligent bot's) behavior. Again, this is basically the same 12db/octave phenomenon. Steve --- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=8660244-6e7fb59c Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] A fundamental limit on intelligence?!
Russell, On Mon, Jun 21, 2010 at 1:29 PM, Russell Wallace russell.wall...@gmail.comwrote: On Mon, Jun 21, 2010 at 4:19 PM, Steve Richfield steve.richfi...@gmail.com wrote: That being the case, why don't elephants and other large creatures have really gigantic brains? This seems to be SUCH an obvious evolutionary step. Personally I've always wondered how elephants managed to evolve brains as large as they currently have. How much intelligence does it take to sneak up on a leaf? (Granted, intraspecies social interactions seem to provide at least part of the answer.) I suspect that intra-specie social behavior will expand to utilize all available intelligence. There are all sorts of network-destroying phenomena that rise from complex networks, e.g. phase shift oscillators there circular analysis paths enforce themselves, computational noise is endlessly analyzed, etc. We know that our own brains are just barely stable, as flashing lights throw some people into epileptic attacks, etc. Perhaps network stability is the intelligence limiter? Empirically, it isn't. I see what you are saying, but I don't think you have made your case... Suppose for a moment that theoretically perfect neurons could work in a brain of limitless size, but their imperfections accumulate (or multiply) to destroy network operation when you get enough of them together. Brains have grown larger because neurons have evolved to become more nearly perfect Actually it's the other way around. Brains compensate for imperfections (both transient error and permanent failure) in neurons by using more of them. William Calvin, the author who is most credited with making and spreading this view, and I had a discussion on his Seattle rooftop, while throwing pea gravel at a target planter. His assertion was that we utilize many parallel circuits to achieve accuracy, and mine was that it was something else, e.g. successive approximation. I pointed out that if one person tossed the pea gravel by putting it on their open hand and pushing it at a target, and the other person blocked their arm, that the relationship between how much of the stroke was truncated and how great the error was would disclose the method of calculation. The question boils down to the question of whether the error grows drastically even with small truncation of movement (because a prototypical throw is used, as might be expected from a parallel approach), or grows exponentially because error correcting steps have been lost. We observed apparent exponential growth, much smaller than would be expected from parallel computation, though no one was keeping score. In summary, having performed the above experiment, I reject this common view. Note that, as the number of transistors on a silicon chip increases, the extent to which our chip designs do the same thing also increases. Another pet peeve of mine. They could/should do MUCH more fault tolerance than they now are. Present puny efforts are completely ignorant of past developments, e.g. Tandem Nonstop computers. There are some medium-scale network similes in the world, e.g. the power grid. However, there they have high-level central control and lots of crashes The power in my neighborhood fails once every few years (and that's from all causes, including 'the cable guys working up the street put a JCB through the line', not just network crashes). If you're getting lots of power failures in your neighborhood, your electricity supply company is doing something wrong. If you look at the failures/bandwidth, it is pretty high. The point is that the information bandwidth of the power grid is EXTREMELY low, so it shouldn't fail at all, at least not more than maybe once per century. However, just like the May 6 problem, it sometimes gets itself into trouble of its own making. Any overload SHOULD simply result in shutting down some low-priority load, like the heaters in steel plants, and this usually works as planned. However, it sometimes fails for VERY complex reasons - so complex that PhD engineers are unable to put it into words, despite having millisecond-by-millisecond histories to work from. I wonder, does the very-large-scale network problem even have a prospective solution? Is there any sort of existence proof of this? Yes, our repeated successes in simultaneously improving both the size and stability of very large scale networks (trade, NOT stable at all. Just look at the condition of the world's economy. postage, telegraph, electricity, road, telephone, Internet) None of these involve feedback, the fundamental requirement to be a network rather than a simple tree structure. This despite common misuse of the term network to cover everything with lots of interconnections. serve as very nice existence proofs. I'm still looking. Steve --- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https
Re: [agi] A fundamental limit on intelligence?!
John, Hmmm, I though that with your EE background, that the 12db/octave would bring back old sophomore-level course work. OK, so you were sick that day. I'll try to fill in the blanks here... On Mon, Jun 21, 2010 at 11:16 AM, John G. Rose johnr...@polyplexic.comwrote: Of course, there is the big question of just what it is that is being attenuated in the bowels of an intelligent system. Usually, it is computational delays making sharp frequency-limited attenuation at their response speeds. Every gamer is well aware of the oscillations that long ping times can introduce in people's (and intelligent bot's) behavior. Again, this is basically the same 12db/octave phenomenon. OK, excuse my ignorance on this - a design issue in distributed intelligence is how to split up things amongst the agents. I see it as a hierarchy of virtual networks, with the lowest level being the substrate like IP sockets or something else but most commonly TCP/UDP. The protocols above that need to break up the work, and the knowledge distribution, so the 12db/octave phenomenon must apply there too. RC low-pass circuits exhibit 6db/octave rolloff and 90 degree phase shifts. 12db/octave corresponds to a 180 degree phase shift. More than 180 degrees and you are into positive feedback. At 24db/octave, you are at maximum * positive* feedback, which makes great oscillators. The 12 db/octave limit applies to entire loops of components, and not to the individual components. This means that you can put a lot of 1db/octave components together in a big loop and get into trouble. This is commonly encountered in complex analog filter circuits that incorporate 2 or more op-amps in a single feedback loop. Op amps are commonly compensated to have 6db/octave rolloff. Put 2 of them together and you right at the precipice of 12db/octave. Add some passive components that have their own rolloffs, and you are over the edge of stability, and the circuit sits there and oscillates on its own. The usual cure is to replace one of the op-amps with an *un*compensated op-amp with ~0db/octave rolloff, until it gets to its maximum frequency, whereupon it has an astronomical rolloff. However, that astronomical rolloff works BECAUSE the loop gain at that frequency is less than 1, so the circuit cannot self-regenerate and oscillate at that frequency. Considering the above and the complexity of neural circuits, it would seem that neural circuits would have to have absolutely flat responses and some central rolloff mechanism, maybe one of the ~200 different types of neurons, or alternatively, would have to be able to custom-tailor their responses to work in concert to roll off at a reasonable rate. A third alternative is discussed below, where you let them go unstable, and actually utilize the instability to achieve some incredible results. I assume any intelligence processing engine must include a harmonic mathematical component I'm not sure I understand what you are saying here. Perhaps you have discovered the recipe for the secret sauce? since ALL things are basically network, especially intelligence. Most of the things we call networks really just pass information along and do NOT have feedback mechanisms. Power control is an interesting exception, but most of those guys are unable to even carry on an intelligent conversation about the subject. No wonder the power networks have problems. This might be an overly aggressive assumption but it seems from observance that intelligence/consciousness exhibits some sort of harmonic property, or levels. You apparently grok something about harmonics that I don't (yet) grok. Please enlighten me. Are you familiar with regenerative receiver operation where operation is on the knife-edge of instability, or super-regenerative receiver operation, wherein an intentionally UNstable circuit is operated to achieve phenomenal gain and specifically narrow bandwidth? These were common designs back in the early vacuum tube era, when active components cost a day's wages. Given all of the observed frequency components coming from neural circuits, perhaps neurons do something similar to actually USE instability to their benefit?! Is this related to your harmonic thoughts? Thanks. Steve --- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=8660244-6e7fb59c Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
[agi] An alternative plan to discover self-organization theory
No, I haven't been smokin' any wacky tobacy. Instead, I was having a long talk with my son Eddie, about self-organization theory. This is *his*proposal: He suggested that I construct a simple NN that couldn't work without self organizing, and make dozens/hundreds of different neuron and synapse operational characteristics selectable ala genetic programming, put it on the fastest computer I could get my hands on, turn it loose trying arbitrary combinations of characteristics, and see what the winning combination turns out to be. Then, armed with that knowledge, refine the genetic characteristics and do it again, and iterate until it *efficiently* self organizes. This might go on for months, but self-organization theory might just emerge from such an effort. I had a bunch of objections to his approach, e.g. Q. What if it needs something REALLY strange to work? A. Who better than you to come up with a long list of really strange functionality? Q. There are at least hundreds of bits in the genome. A. Try combinations in pseudo-random order, with each bit getting asserted in ~half of the tests. If/when you stumble onto a combination that sort of works, switch to varying the bits one-at-a-time, and iterate in this way until the best combination is found. Q. Where are we if this just burns electricity for a few months and finds nothing? A. Print out the best combination, break out the wacky tobacy, and come up with even better/crazier parameters to test. I have never written a line of genetic programming, but I know that others here have. Perhaps you could bring some rationality to this discussion? What would be a simple NN that needs self-organization? Maybe a small pot of neurons that could only work if they were organized into layers, e.g. a simple 64-neuron system that would work as a 4x4x4-layer visual recognition system, given the input that I fed it? Any thoughts on how to score partial successes? Has anyone tried anything like this in the past? Is anyone here crazy enough to want to help with such an effort? This Monte Carlo approach might just be simple enough to work, and simple enough that it just HAS to be tried. All thoughts, stones, and rotten fruit will be gratefully appreciated. Thanks in advance. Steve --- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=8660244-6e7fb59c Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] An alternative plan to discover self-organization theory
ideas - and deal with the real, only roughly definable world - and you'll never address AGI.. *From:* Steve Richfield steve.richfi...@gmail.com *Sent:* Sunday, June 20, 2010 7:06 AM *To:* agi agi@v2.listbox.com *Subject:* [agi] An alternative plan to discover self-organization theory No, I haven't been smokin' any wacky tobacy. Instead, I was having a long talk with my son Eddie, about self-organization theory. This is *his*proposal: He suggested that I construct a simple NN that couldn't work without self organizing, and make dozens/hundreds of different neuron and synapse operational characteristics selectable ala genetic programming, put it on the fastest computer I could get my hands on, turn it loose trying arbitrary combinations of characteristics, and see what the winning combination turns out to be. Then, armed with that knowledge, refine the genetic characteristics and do it again, and iterate until it *efficiently* self organizes. This might go on for months, but self-organization theory might just emerge from such an effort. I had a bunch of objections to his approach, e.g. Q. What if it needs something REALLY strange to work? A. Who better than you to come up with a long list of really strange functionality? Q. There are at least hundreds of bits in the genome. A. Try combinations in pseudo-random order, with each bit getting asserted in ~half of the tests. If/when you stumble onto a combination that sort of works, switch to varying the bits one-at-a-time, and iterate in this way until the best combination is found. Q. Where are we if this just burns electricity for a few months and finds nothing? A. Print out the best combination, break out the wacky tobacy, and come up with even better/crazier parameters to test. I have never written a line of genetic programming, but I know that others here have. Perhaps you could bring some rationality to this discussion? What would be a simple NN that needs self-organization? Maybe a small pot of neurons that could only work if they were organized into layers, e.g. a simple 64-neuron system that would work as a 4x4x4-layer visual recognition system, given the input that I fed it? Any thoughts on how to score partial successes? Has anyone tried anything like this in the past? Is anyone here crazy enough to want to help with such an effort? This Monte Carlo approach might just be simple enough to work, and simple enough that it just HAS to be tried. All thoughts, stones, and rotten fruit will be gratefully appreciated. Thanks in advance. Steve *agi* | Archives https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ | Modifyhttps://www.listbox.com/member/?;Your Subscription http://www.listbox.com *agi* | Archives https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ | Modifyhttps://www.listbox.com/member/?;Your Subscription http://www.listbox.com --- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=8660244-6e7fb59c Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] An alternative plan to discover self-organization theory
Jim, I'm trying to get my arms around what you are saying here. I'll make some probably off the mark comments in the hopes that you will clarify your statement... On Sun, Jun 20, 2010 at 2:38 AM, Jim Bromer jimbro...@gmail.com wrote: On Sun, Jun 20, 2010 at 2:06 AM, Steve Richfield steve.richfi...@gmail.com wrote: No, I haven't been smokin' any wacky tobacy. Instead, I was having a long talk with my son Eddie, about self-organization theory. This is *his*proposal: He suggested that I construct a simple NN that couldn't work without self organizing, and make dozens/hundreds of different neuron and synapse operational characteristics selectable ala genetic programming, put it on the fastest computer I could get my hands on, turn it loose trying arbitrary combinations of characteristics, and see what the winning combination turns out to be. That's a pretty interesting idea, but it won't work...I am joking, what I mean is that it is not very interesting if you are only interested in substantial success, it is much more interesting if you are interested in finding out what happens. Genetic Programming has a flaw in that it is not designed to recall outputs that might be used in a constructive combination. The program could take the winning genome, try inverting each bit one-by-one, and observe the relative deterioration in performance. Then, the important characteristics could be listed in order of deterioration when their respective bits were inverted, with the most deteriorated ones listed first. That should give me a pretty good idea of what is important and what is not, which should be a BIG clue as to how it works. If the algorithm was designed to do this, the candidate outputs (probably) would have to be organized (indexed) by parts and associated with the combinations that created them. A mix of neurons with a winning genome varied slightly among subgroup(s) might potentially discover an important combination of characteristics needed for better operation, e.g. different operation for different emergent layers. Furthermore, since the output of a genetic algorithm is evaluated by a precise method, THIS seems to be the BIG challenge - evaluating crap. Like having a Nobel Laurette judging primary school science projects, only worse. Not only must figures of merit be evaluated and combined akin to end-branch position evaluation in a chess playing program, but there is added the sad fact that the programmer's (my) own ignorance is built into those figures of merit. This is why chess playing programs written by chess masters work better than chess playing programs written by really good programmers. I once wrote such a program for a commercial time sharing service and many customers played it. It never lost! It also never won!!! It played the most incredibly boring defensive game that everyone simply walked away from it, rather than spending the hours needed to ever so carefully beat it. I learned a lot from that program, NOT including how to play better chess. Hopefully I can avoid the same fate with this effort. My hope here is that the programmer (me) will become a master (understand self-organization) in the process, which is really the goal of this program, to train the programmer. the sense of self organization might be voided or at least made more elusive and problematic. You'd have to redesign how genetic algorithms evaluate their candidate outputs and before you did that you would have to put some thought into how a programmer can design a test for self-organization. It is a subtle question. I agree. Do you have any thoughts about how to go about this? Steve --- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=8660244-6e7fb59c Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] Encouraging?
Mike, On 1/14/09, Mike Tintner tint...@blueyonder.co.uk wrote: You have talked about past recessions being real opportunities for business. But in past recessions, wasn't business able to get lending? And doesn't the tightness of the credit market today inhibit some opportunities? It definitely changes things. This could all change in a heartbeat. Suppose for a moment that Saudi Arabia decided to secure its Riyal (their dollar) with a liter of oil. The Trillions now sitting in Federal Reserve accounts without interest and at risk of the dollar collapsing, could simply be transferred into Riyals instead and be secure. Of course, this would instantly bankrupt the U.S. government and many of those Trillions would be lost, but it WOULD instantly restore whatever survived of the worldwide monetary system. Typically not. Most new innovations are started without access to credit in good times or bad. Only because business can't recognize a good thing when they see it, e.g. Zerox not seeing the value of their early version of Windows. Microsoft (MSFT) was started without any access to credit. Unless you count the millions that his parents had to help him over the rough spots. It's only in crazy times that people lend money to people who are experimenting with innovations. In ordinary times, they want stock instead, with its MUCH greater upside potential. Most of the great businesses today were started with neither a lot of venture capital nor with any bank lending until five or six years after they were [up and running]. This really gets down to what up and running is. For HP, they were making light bulb stabilized audio oscillators in their garage. Because of numerous possibilities like a secured Riyal mentioned above, I suspect that things will instantly change one way or another as quickly as they came down from Credit Default Swaps, a completely hidden boondoggle until it went off. Note how Zaire solved their monetary problems years ago. They closed their borders over the Christmas holidays and exchanged new dollars for old. Then they re-opened their borders, leaving the worthless old dollars held by foreigners.as someone ELSE's problem. Mexico went through a sudden 1000:1 devaluation to solve their problems. In one stroke this wiped out their foreign debt. Expect something REALLY dramatic in the relatively near future. I suspect that our bribe-o-cratic form of government will prohibit our taking preemptive action, and thereby leave us at the (nonexistent) mercy of other powers that aren't so inhibited. I have NEVER seen a desperate action based on a simple lack of alternatives, like the various proposed stimulus plans, ever work. Never expect a problem to be solved by the same mindset that created it (Einstein). The lack of investment money will soon be seen as the least of our problems. On a side note, There hasn't been $20 spent on real genuine industrial research in the last decade. This means that you can own the field of your choice by simply investing a low level of research effort, and waiting for things to change. I have selected 3 narrow disjoint areas and now appear to be a/the leader in each. I am just waiting for the world to recognize that it desperately needs one of them. Any thoughts? Steve Richfield --- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=126863270-d7b0b0 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] Epineuronal programming
, structure, etc., then you would be on the right track here. However, it does have edges and corners of countless variety, and in dp/dt space, sometimes/often interesting objects move while the background remains stationary, thereby momentarily extracting objects with all their features separated from their surroundings - something that can't happen outside of dp/dt space. Perhaps you learned about early perceptron experiments, where they taught them with prototypical inputs, e.g. visual inputs with black figures on white cards? Of course this worked great for demos, but was unworkable using real-world patterns for learning. My hope/expectation is that dp/dt can put things back into similar simplistic learning, but using real-world inputs. In short, I see dp/dt as a sort of mathematical trick to return to the simplicity and instantaneous learning of early perceptrons. My impression here is that this entire field has become hung up on using probabilistic methods, knowing full well that they don't work well enough to utilize in practical AGI/NN systems for very fundamental reasons. dp/dt methods promise an escape from this entire mess by sometimes extracting prototypical cases from highly complex real-world input, and thereby provide instant programming from just a few patterns, one of which must pass the various tests of being prototypical (only a certain percentage of inputs are active), contains a principal component (no active lateral inhibition), and be interesting (downstream neurons later utilize it). Failing these tests, throw it back, put your hook back in the water, and wait for something else to bite, all while discarding all input data until you encounter one that fits. In short, dp/dt looks like a whole new game, with new opportunities that would be COMPLETELY unworkable outside of dp/dt space. However, this new game is really VERY old, some of it coming from the very early days of perceptrons. Steve Richfield === On Wed, Jan 7, 2009 at 1:40 PM, Steve Richfield steve.richfi...@gmail.com wrote: Abram, On 1/6/09, Abram Demski abramdem...@gmail.com wrote: Well, I *still* think you are wasting your time with flat (propositional) learning. I'm not at all sure that I understand what you are saying here, so some elaboration is probably in order. I'm not saying there isn't still progress to be made in this area, but I just don't see it as an area where progress is critical. My guess is that the poor performance of non dp/dt methods is depressing, so everyone wants to look elsewhere. Damn that yellow stuff, I'm looking for SILVER. My hope/expectation is that this field can be supercharged with dp/dt methods. The main thing that we can do with propositional models when we're dealing with relational data is construct markov-models. By Markov you are referring to successive computation processes, e.g. layers of neurons, each feeding the next? Markov models are highly prone to overmatching the dataset when they become high-order. Only because the principal components haven't been accurately sorted out by dp/dt methods? So far as I am aware, improvements to propositional models mainly improve performance for large numbers of variables, since there isn't much to gain with only a few variables. Again, hoping that enough redundancy can deal with the overlapping effects of things that occur together, a problem generally eliminated by dp/dt methods. (FYI, I don't have much evidence to back up that claim.) When I finally get this all wrung out, I'll move onto using Eddie's NN platform, that ties into web cams and other complex software or input. Then, we should have lots of real-world testing. BTW, with really fast learning, MUCH larger models can be simulated on the same computers. So, I don't think progress on the propositional front directly translates to progress on the relational front, except in cases where we have astronomical amounts of data to prevent overmatching. In a sense, dp/dt provides another dimension to sort things out. I am hoping/expecting that LESS dp/dt data is needed this way than with other competing methods. Moreover, we need something more than just markov models! The BIG question is: Can we characterize what is needed? The transition to hidden-markov-model is not too difficult if we take the approach of hierarchical temporal memory; but this is still very simplistic. Most, though certainly not all elegant solutions are simple. Is dp/dt (and corollary methods) it or not? THAT is the question. Any thoughts about dealing with this? Here, I am hung up on this. Rather than respond in excruciating detail with a presumption of this, I'll make the following simplistic statement to get this process started. Simple learning methods have not worked well for reasons you mentioned above. The question here
Re: [agi] Epineuronal programming
Abram, On 1/6/09, Abram Demski abramdem...@gmail.com wrote: Well, I *still* think you are wasting your time with flat (propositional) learning. I'm not at all sure that I understand what you are saying here, so some elaboration is probably in order. I'm not saying there isn't still progress to be made in this area, but I just don't see it as an area where progress is critical. My guess is that the poor performance of non dp/dt methods is depressing, so everyone wants to look elsewhere. Damn that yellow stuff, I'm looking for SILVER. My hope/expectation is that this field can be supercharged with dp/dt methods. The main thing that we can do with propositional models when we're dealing with relational data is construct markov-models. By Markov you are referring to successive computation processes, e.g. layers of neurons, each feeding the next? Markov models are highly prone to overmatching the dataset when they become high-order. Only because the principal components haven't been accurately sorted out by dp/dt methods? So far as I am aware, improvements to propositional models mainly improve performance for large numbers of variables, since there isn't much to gain with only a few variables. Again, hoping that enough redundancy can deal with the overlapping effects of things that occur together, a problem generally eliminated by dp/dt methods. (FYI, I don't have much evidence to back up that claim.) When I finally get this all wrung out, I'll move onto using Eddie's NN platform, that ties into web cams and other complex software or input. Then, we should have lots of real-world testing. BTW, with really fast learning, MUCH larger models can be simulated on the same computers. So, I don't think progress on the propositional front directly translates to progress on the relational front, except in cases where we have astronomical amounts of data to prevent overmatching. In a sense, dp/dt provides another dimension to sort things out. I am hoping/expecting that LESS dp/dt data is needed this way than with other competing methods. Moreover, we need something more than just markov models! The BIG question is: Can we characterize what is needed? The transition to hidden-markov-model is not too difficult if we take the approach of hierarchical temporal memory; but this is still very simplistic. Most, though certainly not all elegant solutions are simple. Is dp/dt (and corollary methods) it or not? THAT is the question. Any thoughts about dealing with this? Here, I am hung up on this. Rather than respond in excruciating detail with a presumption of this, I'll make the following simplistic statement to get this process started. Simple learning methods have not worked well for reasons you mentioned above. The question here is whether dp/dt methods blow past those limitations in general, and whether epineuronal methods blow past best in particular. Are we on the same page here? Steve Richfield On Mon, Jan 5, 2009 at 12:42 PM, Steve Richfield steve.richfi...@gmail.com wrote: Thanks everyone for helping me wring out the whole dp/dt thing. Now for the next part of Steve's Theory... If we look at learning as extracting information from a noisy channel, in which the S/N ratio is usually 1, but where the S/N ratio is sometimes very high, the WRONG thing to do is to engage in some sort of slow averaging process as present slow-learning processes do. This especially when dp/dt based methods can occationally completely separate (in time) the signal from the noise. Instead, it would appear that the best/fastest/cleanest (from an information theory viewpoint) way to extract the signal would be to wait for a nearly-perfect low-noise opportunity and simply latch on to the principal component therein. Of course there will still be some noise present, regardless of how good the opportunity, so some sort of successive refinement process using future opportunities could further trim NN synapses, edit AGI terms, etc. In short, I see that TWO entirely different learning mechanisms are needed, one to initially latch onto an approximate principal component, and a second to refine that component. Processes like this have their obvious hazards, like initially failing to incorporate a critical synapse/term, and in the process dooming their functionality regardless of refinement. Neurons, principal components, equations, etc., that turn out to be worthless, or which are refined into nothingness, would simply trigger another epineuronal reprogramming to yet another principal component, when a lack of lateral inhibition or other AGI-equivalent process detects that something is happening that nothing else recognizes. In short, I am proposing abandoning the sorts of slow learning processes typical of machine learning, except for use in gradual refinement of opportunistic instantly-recognized principal components. Any
[agi] Epineuronal programming
Thanks everyone for helping me wring out the whole dp/dt thing. Now for the next part of Steve's Theory... If we look at learning as extracting information from a noisy channel, in which the S/N ratio is usually 1, but where the S/N ratio is sometimes very high, the WRONG thing to do is to engage in some sort of slow averaging process as present slow-learning processes do. This especially when dp/dt based methods can occationally completely separate (in time) the signal from the noise. Instead, it would appear that the best/fastest/cleanest (from an information theory viewpoint) way to extract the signal would be to wait for a nearly-perfect low-noise opportunity and simply latch on to the principal component therein. Of course there will still be some noise present, regardless of how good the opportunity, so some sort of successive refinement process using future opportunities could further trim NN synapses, edit AGI terms, etc. In short, I see that TWO entirely different learning mechanisms are needed, one to initially latch onto an approximate principal component, and a second to refine that component. Processes like this have their obvious hazards, like initially failing to incorporate a critical synapse/term, and in the process dooming their functionality regardless of refinement. Neurons, principal components, equations, etc., that turn out to be worthless, or which are refined into nothingness, would simply trigger another epineuronal reprogramming to yet another principal component, when a lack of lateral inhibition or other AGI-equivalent process detects that something is happening that nothing else recognizes. In short, I am proposing abandoning the sorts of slow learning processes typical of machine learning, except for use in gradual refinement of opportunistic instantly-recognized principal components. Any thoughts? Steve Richfield --- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=123753653-47f84b Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] Introducing Steve's Theory of Everything in cognition.
Abram, The SparceDBN article you referenced reminds me that I should contact Babelfish and propose a math-to-English translation option. Here were some simple concepts obfuscated by notation. I think you are saying that these guys have a really good learning algorithm, and I have figured out how to make such things FAST, so that together, these methods should about equal natural capabilities. Continuing with your comments... On 1/2/09, Abram Demski abramdem...@gmail.com wrote: Steve, I'm thinking that you are taking understanding to mean something like identifying the *actual* hidden variables responsible for the pattern, and finding the *actual* state of that variable. Probabilistic models instead *invent* hidden variables, that happen to help explain the data. Is that about right? If so, then explaining what I mean by functionally equivalent will help. Here is an example: suppose that we are looking at data concerning a set of chemical experiments. Suppose that the experimental conditions are not very well-controlled, so that interesting hidden variables are present. Suppose that two of these are temperature and air pressure, but that the two have the same effect on the experiment. Then the unsupervised learning will have no way of distinguishing between the two, so it will only find one hidden variable representing them. So, they are functionally equivalent. OK. This implies that, in the absence of further information, the best thing we can do to try to understand the data is to probabilistically model it. OK. Or perhaps when you say understanding it is short for understanding the implications of, ie, in an already-present model. In that case, perhaps we could separate the quality of predictions from the speed of predictions. A complicated-but-accurate model is useless if we can't calculate the information we need quickly enough. I suspect that when better understandings are had, that something will emerge that is both fast AND accurate. Hence, I am resistant to choosing unless/until forced to do so. So, we also want an understandable model: one that doesn't take too long to create predictions. This would be different than looking for the best probabilistic model in terms of prediction accuracy. Possible, but not shown to be so. On the other hand, it is irrelevant in (practically?) all neural-network style approaches today, because the model size is fixed anyway. I'm not sure I see what you are saying here. Until you run out of memory, model size is completely variable. If the output is being fed to humans rather than further along the network, as in the conference example, the situation is very different. Human-readability becomes an issue. This paper is a good example of an approach that creates better human-readability rather than better performance: http://www.stanford.edu/~hllee/nips07-sparseDBN.pdf The altered algorithm also seems to have a performance that matches more closely with statistical analysis of the stray cat's brain (which was the research goal), suggesting a correlation between human-readability and actual performance gains (since the brain wouldn't do it if it were a bad idea). In a probabilistic framework this is represented best by a prior bias for simplicity. Here, everything boils down to the meaning of simplicity, e.g. does it mean minimum energy RBM, or something else that is probably fairly similar. Perhaps we should discuss the a priori knowledge issue from my prior posting, as I suspect that some of that bears upon simplicity. Thanks again for staying with me on this. I think we are gradually making some real progress here. Steve Richfield = On Fri, Jan 2, 2009 at 1:36 PM, Steve Richfield steve.richfi...@gmail.com wrote: Abram, Oh dammitall, I'm going to have to expose the vast extent of my profound ignorance to respond. Oh well... On 1/1/09, Abram Demski abramdem...@gmail.com wrote: Steve, Sorry for not responding for a little while. Comments follow: PCA attempts to isolate components that give maximum information... so my question to you becomes, do you think that the problem you're pointing towards is suboptimal models that don't predict the data well enough, or models that predict the data fine but aren't directly useful for what you expect them to be useful for? Since prediction is NOT the goal, but rather just a useful measure, I am only interested in recognizing that which can be recognized, and NOT in expending resources on understanding semi-random noise. Further, since compression is NOT my goal, I am not interested in combining features in ways that minimize the number of components. In short, there is a lot to be learned from PCA, but a perfect PCA solution is likely a less-than-perfect NN solution. What I am saying is this: a good predictive model will predict whatever is desired
Re: [agi] Introducing Steve's Theory of Everything in cognition.
. The threshold for feature recognition, e.g. the number of active synapses that must be involved for a feature to be interesting. 3. The acceptable fuzziness of recognition, e.g. just how accurately must a feature match its pattern. 4. ??? What have I missed in this list? 5. Some or all of the above may be calculable based on ??? Thanks for your help. Steve Richfield --- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=123753653-47f84b Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] Hypercomputation and AGI
J. Andrew, On 1/1/09, J. Andrew Rogers and...@ceruleansystems.com wrote: On Jan 1, 2009, at 2:35 PM, J. Andrew Rogers wrote: Since digital and analog are the same thing computationally (digital is a subset of analog), and non-digital computers have been generally superior for several decades, this is not relevant. Gah, that should be *digital* computers have generally been superior for several decades (the last non-digital hold-outs I am aware of were designed in the late 1970s). Ignoring the issues or representation and display, I agree. However, consider three interesting cases... 1. I only survived my college differential equations course with the help of a (now antique) EAI analog computer. Therein, I could simply wire it up as the equation stated, with about as many wires as symbols in the equations, without (much) concern for the internal workings of either the computer or the equation, and get out a parametric plot any way I wanted. However, with a digital computer, maybe there is suitable software by now, but I would have to worry about how the computer did things, e.g. how fine the time slices are, etc. Further, I couldn't just throw the equation at the machine with a digital computer much as I could do with the analog computer, though again, maybe software has caught up by now. 2. Related to above and mentioned earlier, electrolytic fish-tank analogs have long been used to characterize electric and magnetic fields. While these may not be as accurate as digital simulation, they are in TRUE walk-around 3-D representation, and changes can be made in seconds with no need to verify that the change indeed reflects the intended change. This is another example where, at the loss of a few down in the noise digits, you can be SURE that the model indeed simulates reality. The same was long true of wind tunnels, until things got SO valuable (and competitive) that it was worth the millions of dollars to go after those last few digits. 3. Conditioning high-speed phenomena. Transistors are now SO fast and have SO much gain that they have become nearly perfect mathematical components. Most people don't think of their TV tuners as being analog computers, but... Steve Richfield --- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=123753653-47f84b Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] Hypercomputation and AGI
J. Andrew, On 12/30/08, J. Andrew Rogers and...@ceruleansystems.com wrote: On Dec 30, 2008, at 12:51 AM, Steve Richfield wrote: On a side note, there is the clean math that people learn on their way to a math PhD, and then there is the dirty math that governs physical systems. Dirty math is fraught with all sorts of multi-valued functions, fundamental uncertainties, etc. To work in the world of dirty math, you must escape the notation and figure out what the equation is all about, and find some way of representing THAT, which may well not involve simple numbers on the real-number line, or even on the complex number plane. What does dirty math really mean? There are engineering disciplines essentially *built* on solving equations with gross internal inconsistencies and unsolvable systems of differential equations. The modern world gets along pretty admirably suffering the very profitable and ubiquitous consequences of their quasi-solutions to those problems. But it is still a lot of hairy notational math and equations, just applied in a different context that has function uncertainty as an assumption. The unsolvability does not lead them to pull numbers out of a hat, they have sound methods for brute-forcing fine approximations across a surprisingly wide range of situations. When the clean mathematical methods do not apply, there are other different (not dirty) mathematical methods that you can use. The dirty line is rather fuzzy, but you know you've crossed it when instead of locations, things have probability spaces, when you are trying to numerically solve systems of simultaneous equations and it always seems that at least one of them produces NANs, etc. Algebra was designed for the real world as we experience it, and works for most engineering problems, but often runs aground in theoretical physics, at least until you abandon the idea of a 1:1 correspondence between states and variables. Indeed, I have sometimes said the only real education I ever got in AI was spending years studying an engineering discipline that is nothing but reducing very complex systems of pervasively polluted data and nonsense equations to precise predictive models where squeezing out an extra 1% accuracy meant huge profit. None of it is directly applicable, the value was internalizing that kind of systems perspective and thinking about every complex systems problem in those terms, with a lot of experience algorithmically producing predictive models from them. It was different but it was still ordinary math, just math appropriate for the particular problem. Bingo! You have to tailor the techniques to the problem - more than just solving the equations, but often the representation of quantities needs to be in some sort of multivalued form. The only thing you could really say about it was that it produced a lot of great computer scientists and no mathematicians to speak of (an odd bias, that). Yea, but I'd bet that you got pretty good at numerical analysis ;-) With this as background, as I see it, hypercomputation is just another attempt to evade dealing with some hard mathematical problems. The definition of hypercomputation captures some very specific mathematical concepts that are not captured in other conceptual terms. I do not see what is being evaded, ... which is where the break probably is. If someone is going to claim that Turing machines are incapable of doing something, then it seems important to state just what that something is. since it is more like pointing out the obvious with respect to certain limits implied by the conventional Turing model. I wonder if we aren't really talking about analog computation (i.e. computing with analogues, e.g. molecules) here? Analog computers have been handily out-computing digital computers for a long time. One analog computer that produced tide tables, now in a glass case at the NOAA headquarters, performed well for ~100 years until it was finally replaced by a large CDC computer - and probably now with a PC. Some magnetic systems engineers still resort to fish tank analogs rather than deal with software. Steve Richfield --- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=123753653-47f84b Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] Introducing Steve's Theory of Everything in cognition.
Loosemore, et al, Just to get this discussion out of esoteric math, here is a REALLY SIMPLE way of doing unsupervised learning with dp/dt that looks like it ought to work. Suppose we record each occurrence of the inputs to a neuron, keeping counters to identify how many times each combination has happened. For this discussion, each input will be considered to have either a substantial positive, substantial negative, or nearly zero dp/dt. When we reach a threshold, of, say 20, identical occurrences of the same combination of dp/dt that is NOT accompanied by lateral inhibition, we will proclaim THAT to be our principal component function for that neuron to do for the rest of its life. Thereafter, the neuron will require the previously observed positive and negative inputs to be as programmed, but will ignore all inputs that were nearly zero. Of course, many frames will be corrupted because of overlapping phenomena, sampling on a dp/dt edges, noise, fast phenomena, etc., etc. However, there will be few if any precise repetitions of corrupted frames, whereas clean frames should be quite common. First the most common frame (all zeros - nothing there) will be recognized, followed by each of the most common simultaneously occurring temporal patterns recognized by successive neurons, all identified in order of decreasing frequency exactly as needed for Huffman or PCA coding. This process won't start until all inputs are accompanied by an indication that they have already been programmed by this process, so that programming will proceed layer by layer without corruption from inputs being only partially developed (a common problem in multi-layer NNs). While clever math might make this work a little faster, and certainly wet neurons can't store many previous patterns, this should be guaranteed to work, and produce substantially perfect unsupervised learning, albeit probably slower than better-math methods, but probably faster than wet neurons that can't save thousands of combinations during early programming. Of course, this would be completely unworkable outside of dp/dt space, as in object space, this would probably exhaust a computer's memory before completing. Does this get the Loosemore Certificate of No Objection as being an apparently workable method for substantially optimal unsupervised learning? Thanks for considering this. Steve Richfield --- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=123753653-47f84b Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] Introducing Steve's Theory of Everything in cognition.
Richard, On 12/25/08, Richard Loosemore r...@lightlink.com wrote: Steve Richfield wrote: Ben, et al, After ~5 months of delay for theoretical work, here are the basic ideas as to how really fast and efficient automatic learning could be made almost trivial. I decided NOT to post the paper (yet), but rather, to just discuss the some of the underlying ideas in AGI-friendly terms. Suppose for a moment that a NN or AGI program (they can be easily mapped from one form to the other ... this is not obvious, to say the least. Mapping involves many compromises that change the functioning of each type ... There are doubtless exceptions to my broad statement, but generally, neuron functionality is WIDE open to be pretty much ANYTHING you choose, including that of an AGI engine's functionality on its equations. In the reverse, any NN could be expressed in a shorthand form that contains structure, synapse functions, etc., and an AGI engine could be built/modified to function according to that shorthand. In short, mapping between NN and AGI forms presumes flexibility in the functionality of the target form. Where that flexibility is NOT present, e.g. because of orthogonal structure, etc., then you must ask whether something is being gained or lost by the difference. Clearly, any transition that involves a loss should be carefully examined to see if the entire effort is headed in the wrong direction, which I think was your original point here. ), instead of operating on objects (in an object-oriented sense) Neither NN nor AGI has any intrinsic relationship to OO. Clearly I need a better term here. Both NNs and AGIs tend to have neurons or equations that reflect the presence (or absence) of various objects, conditions, actions, etc. My fundamental assertion is that if you differentiate the inputs so that everything in the entire network reflects dp/dt instead of straight probabilities, then the network works identically, but learning is GREATLY simplified. , instead, operates on the rate-of-changes in the probabilities of objects, or dp/dt. Presuming sufficient bandwidth to generally avoid superstitious coincidences, fast unsupervised learning then becomes completely trivial, as like objects cause simultaneous like-patterned changes in the inputs WITHOUT the overlapping effects of the many other objects typically present in the input (with numerous minor exceptions). You have already presumed that something supplies the system with objects that are meaningful. Even before your first mention of dp/dt, there has to be a mechanism that is so good that it never invents objects such as: Object A: A person who once watched all of Tuesday Welds movies in the space of one week or Object B: Something that is a combination of Julius Caesar's pinky toe and a sour grape that Brutus' just spat out or Object C: All of the molecules involved in a swiming gala that happen to be 17.36 meters from the last drop of water that splashed from the pool. You have supplied no mechanism that is able to do that, but that mechanism is 90% of the trouble, if learning is what you are about. With prior unsupervised learning you are 100% correct. However none of the examples you gave involved temporal simultaneity. I will discuss B above because it is close enough to be interesting. If indeed someone just began to notice something interesting about Caesar's pinkie toe *as* they just began to notice the taste of a sour grape, then yes, that probably would be leaned via the mechanisms I am talking about. However, if one was present perfect tense while the other was just beginning, then it wouldn't with my approach but would with prior unsupervised learning methods. For example, Caesar's pinkie toe had been noticed and examined, then before the condition passed they tasted a sour grape, then temporal simultaneity of the dp/dt edges wouldn't exist to learn from. Of course, in both cases, the transforms would work identically given identical prior learning/programming. Instead, you waved your hands and said fast unsupervised learning then becomes completely trivial this statement is a declaration that a good mechanism is available. You then also talk about like objects. But the whole concept of like is extraordinarily troublesome. Are Julius Caesar and Brutus like each other? Seen from our distance, maybe yes, but from the point of view of Julius C., probably not so much. Is a G-type star like a mirror? I don't know any stellar astrophysicists who would say so, but then again OF COURSE they are, because they are almost indistinguishable, because if you hold a mirror up in the right way it can reflect the sun and the two visual images can be identical. These questions can be resolved, sure enough, but it is the whole business of resolving these questions (rather than waving a hand over them and declaring them to be trivial) that is the point. I think
Re: [agi] Introducing Steve's Theory of Everything in cognition.
Andrew, On 12/24/08, J. Andrew Rogers and...@ceruleansystems.com wrote: On Dec 24, 2008, at 10:33 PM, Steve Richfield wrote: Of course you could simply subtract successive samples from one another - at some considerable risk, since you are now sampling at only half the Nyquist-required speed to make your AGI/NN run at its intended speed. In short, if inputs are not being electronically differentiated, then sampling must proceed at least twice as fast as the NN/AGI cycles. Or... you could be using something like compressive sampling, which safely ignores silly things like the Nyquist limit. While compressive sampling needn't be performed so frequently, neither does it (directly) produce the dp/dt values that are needed. Further, while the samples are less frequent, they must be carefully timed, which may be more difficult then frequent sampling. As I understand it, compressive sampling is really great to reduce storage at the cost of greatly increasing the demodulation effort. However, here we don't have any need for storage, just the dp/dt values. In most cases, I suspect that simple electronic differentiation will work best, eliminating the need for ANY computational logic to compute dp/dt. Thanks for the comment. Steve Richfield --- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=123753653-47f84b Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] Introducing Steve's Theory of Everything in cognition.
Vladimir, On 12/24/08, Vladimir Nesov robot...@gmail.com wrote: On Thu, Dec 25, 2008 at 9:33 AM, Steve Richfield steve.richfi...@gmail.com wrote: Any thoughts? I can't tell this note from nonsense. You need to work on presentation, I am having the usual problem that what is obvious to me may not be obvious to anyone else. It would help me a LOT if you could be more specific, so I can avoid burying people in paper. if your idea can actually hold some water. If you think you understand the idea enough to express it as math, by all means do so, it'll make your own thinking clearer if nothing else. \xAD\xF4 kn * sn = \xAD\xF4 kn * ∫ (∂sn/∂t) ∂t Basic neuron with ∂sn/∂t inputs = \xAD\xF4 ∫ kn * (∂sn/∂t) ∂t OK to include efficacy kn = ∫ \xAD\xF4 kn * (∂sn/∂t) ∂t OK to integrate the overall result ∂(\xAD\xF4 kn * sn)/∂t = \xAD\xF4 kn * (∂sn/∂t) Computing ∂result/∂t for next neuron QED Identical internal functionality of multiplying inputs by efficacies and summing them, produces identical represented results, regardless of whether the signals directly represent objects or ∂object/∂t. Does this help? Steve Richfield --- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=123753653-47f84b Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] Introducing Steve's Theory of Everything in cognition.
Richard,Richard, On 12/25/08, Richard Loosemore r...@lightlink.com wrote: Steve Richfield wrote: There are doubtless exceptions to my broad statement, but generally, neuron functionality is WIDE open to be pretty much ANYTHING you choose, including that of an AGI engine's functionality on its equations. In the reverse, any NN could be expressed in a shorthand form that contains structure, synapse functions, etc., and an AGI engine could be built/modified to function according to that shorthand. In short, mapping between NN and AGI forms presumes flexibility in the functionality of the target form. Where that flexibility is NOT present, e.g. because of orthogonal structure, etc., then you must ask whether something is being gained or lost by the difference. Clearly, any transition that involves a loss should be carefully examined to see if the entire effort is headed in the wrong direction, which I think was your original point here. There is a problem here. When someone says X and Y can easily be mapped from one form to the other there is an implication that they are NOt suggesting that we go right down to the basic constituents of both X and Y in order to effect the mapping. Thus: Chalk and Cheese can easily be mapped from one to the other trivially true if we are prepared to go down to the common denominator of electrons, protons and neutrons. But if we stay at a sensible level then, no, these do not map onto one another. The problem here is that you were thinking present existing NN and AGI systems, neither of which work (yet) in any really useful way, that it was obviously impossible to directly convert from one system with its set of bad assumptions to another system with a completely different set of bad assumptions. I completely agree, but I assert that the answer to that particular question is of no practical interest to anyone. On the other hand, converting between NN and AGI systems built on the SAME set of assumptions would be simple. This situation doesn't yet exist. Until then, converting a program from one dysfunctional platform to another is uninteresting. When the assumptions get ironed out, then all systems will be built on the same assumptions, and there will be few problems going between them, EXCEPT: Things need to be arranged in arrays for automated learning, which much more fits the present NN paradigm than the present AGI paradigm. Similarly, if you claim that NN and regular AGI map onto one another, I assume that you are saying something more substantial than that these two can both be broken down into their primitive computational parts, and that when this is done they seem equivalent. Even this breakdown isn't required if both systems are built on the same correct assumptions. HOWEVER, I see no way to transfer fast learning from an NN-like construction to an AGI-like construction. Do you? If there is no answer to this question, then this unanswerable question would seem to redirect AGI efforts to NN-like constructions if they are ever to learn like we do. NN and regular AGI, they way they are understood by people who understand them, have very different styles of constructing intelligent systems. Neither of which work (yet). Of course, we are both trying to fill in the gaps. Sure, you can code both in C, or Lisp, or Cobol, but that is to trash the real meaning of are easily mapped onto one another. One of my favorite consulting projects involved coding an AI program to solve complex problems that were roughly equivalent to solving algebraic equations. This composed the Yellow pages for 28 different large phone directories. The project was for a major phone company and had to be written entirely in COBOL. Further, it had to run at n log n speed and NOT n^2 speed, which I did by using successive sorts instead of list processing methods. It would have been rather difficult to achieve the needed performance in C or Lisp, even though COBOL would seem to be everyone's first choice as the last choice on the list of prospective platforms. ), instead of operating on objects (in an object-oriented sense) Neither NN nor AGI has any intrinsic relationship to OO. Clearly I need a better term here. Both NNs and AGIs tend to have neurons or equations that reflect the presence (or absence) of various objects, conditions, actions, etc. My fundamental assertion is that if you differentiate the inputs so that everything in the entire network reflects dp/dt instead of straight probabilities, then the network works identically, but learning is GREATLY simplified. Seems like a simple misunderstanding: you were not aware that object oriented does not mean the same as saying that there are fundamental atomic constituents of a representation. A typical semantic overloading problem. Atomic consitituent orientation doesn't really work either, because in later stages, individual terms/neurons can represent entire
[agi] Levels of Self-Awareness?
This is more of a question than a statement. There appears to be several levels of self-awareness, e.g. 1. Knowing that you are an individual in a group, have a name, etc. Even kittens and puppies quickly learn their names, know to watch others when their names are called, etc. 2. Understanding that they have some (limited) ability to modify their own behavior, reactions, etc., so that you can explain to them how something they did was inappropriate, and they can then modify their behavior. Can filter what they say, etc. I know one lady with two Masters degree who apparently has NOT reached this level. 3. Understanding that the process of thinking itself is a skill that no one has completely mastered, that there are advanced techniques to be learned, that there are probably as-yet undiscovered techniques for really advanced capabilities, etc. Further, are capable of internalizing new thinking techniques. There appears to be several people on this list who have apparently NOT reached this level. 4. Any theories as to what the next level might be? Note that the above relates to soul, especially in that an individual at a higher level might look upon individuals at a lower level as soulless creatures. Given that various people span several levels, wouldn't this consign much of the human race as being soulless creatures? Clearly, it would seem that no AGI researcher can program a level of self-awareness that they themselves have not reached, tried and failed to reach, etc. Hence, this may impose a cap on a future AGI's potential abilities, especially if thegold is in #4, #5, etc. Has someone already looked into this? Steve Richfield --- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=123753653-47f84b Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] Levels of Self-Awareness?
Philip, On 12/24/08, Philip Hunt cabala...@googlemail.com wrote: 2008/12/24 Steve Richfield steve.richfi...@gmail.com: Clearly, it would seem that no AGI researcher can program a level of self-awareness that they themselves have not reached, tried and failed to reach, etc. This is not at all clear to me. It is certainly prossible for programmers to program computer to do tasks better than they can (e.g. play chess) Yes, but these programmers already know how to play chess. They (probably) can't program a game in which they themselves don't have any skill at all. In the case of higher forms of self-awareness, programmers in effect don't even know the rules of the game to be programmed, yet the game will have a vast overall effect on everything the AGI thinks. To illustrate, much human thought goes into dispute resolution - a field rich with advanced concepts that are generally unknown to the general population and AGI programmers. Since this has to much to do with the subtleties of common errors in human thinking, there is no practical way for an AGI to figure this out for itself short of participating in thousands of disputes - that humans would simply not tolerate. Once these concepts are understood, the very act of thinking is changed forever. Someone who is highly trained and experienced in dispute resolution thinks quite differently than you probably do, and probably regards your thinking as immature and generally low-level. In short, their idea of self-awareness is quite different than yours. Regardless of tools, I don't see how such a thing could be programmed except by someone who is already able to think at that level. Then, how about the NEXT level, whatever that might be? and I see no reason why it shouldn't be possible for self awareness. My point is that lower-level self-awareness is MUCH simpler to contemplate than is higher-level, and further, that different people (and AGI researchers) function at various levels. Indeed it would be rather trivial to give an AGI access to its source code. Why should it be any better at modifying its source code than we would be at writing it? The problem of levels still remains. Steve Richfield --- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=123753653-47f84b Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
[agi] Introducing Steve's Theory of Everything in cognition.
Ben, et al, After ~5 months of delay for theoretical work, here are the basic ideas as to how really fast and efficient automatic learning could be made almost trivial. I decided NOT to post the paper (yet), but rather, to just discuss the some of the underlying ideas in AGI-friendly terms. Suppose for a moment that a NN or AGI program (they can be easily mapped from one form to the other), instead of operating on objects (in an object-oriented sense), instead, operates on the rate-of-changes in the probabilities of objects, or dp/dt. Presuming sufficient bandwidth to generally avoid superstitious coincidences, fast unsupervised learning then becomes completely trivial, as like objects cause simultaneous like-patterned changes in the inputs WITHOUT the overlapping effects of the many other objects typically present in the input (with numerous minor exceptions). But, what would Bayesian equations or NN neuron functionality look like in dp/dt space? NO DIFFERENCE (math upon request). You could trivially differentiate the inputs to a vast and complex existing AGI or NN, integrate the outputs, and it would perform *identically* (except for some little details discussed below). Of course, while the transforms would be identical, unsupervised learning would be quite a different matter, as now the nearly-impossible becomes trivially simple. For some things (like short-term memory) you NEED an integrated object-oriented result. Very simple - just integrate the signal. How about muscle movements? Note that muscle actuation typically causes acceleration, which doubly integrates the driving signal, which would require yet another differentiation of a differentiated signal to, when doubly integrated by the mechanical system, produce movement to the desired location. Note that once input values are stored in a matrix for processing, the baby has already been thrown out with the bathwater. You must START with differentiated input values and NOT static measured values. THIS is what the PCA folks have been missing in their century-long quest for an efficient algorithm to identify principal components, as their arrays had already discarded exactly what they needed. Of course you could simply subtract successive samples from one another - at some considerable risk, since you are now sampling at only half the Nyquist-required speed to make your AGI/NN run at its intended speed. In short, if inputs are not being electronically differentiated, then sampling must proceed at least twice as fast as the NN/AGI cycles. But - how about the countless lost constants of integration? They all come out in the wash - except for where actual integration at the outputs is needed. Then, clippers and leaky integrators, techniques common to electrical engineering, will work fine and produce many of the same artifacts (like visual extinction) seen in natural systems. It all sounds SO simple, but I couldn't find any prior work in this direction using Google. However, the collective memory of this group is pretty good, so perhaps someone here knows of some prior effort that did something like this. I would sure like to put SOMETHING in the References section of my paper. Loosemore: THIS is what I was talking about when I explained that there is absolutely NO WAY to understand a complex system through direct observation, except by its useless anomalies. By shifting an entire AGI or NN to operate on derivatives instead of object values, it works *almost* (the operative word in this statement) exactly the same as one working in object-oriented space, only learning is transformed from the nearly-impossible to the trivially simple. Do YOU see any observation-based way to tell how we are operating behind our eyeballs, object-oriented or dp/dt? While there are certainly other explanations for visual extinction, this is the only one that I know of that is absolutely impossible to engineer around. No one has (yet) proposed any value to visual extinction, and it is a real problem for hunters, so if it were avoidable, then I suspect that ~200 million years of evolution would have eliminated it long ago. From this comes numerous interesting corollaries. Once the dp/dt signals are in array form, it would become simple to automatically recognize patterns representing complex phenomena at the level of the neurons/equations in question. Of course, putting it in this array form is effectively a transformation from AGI equations to NN construction, a transformation that has been discussed in prior postings. In short, if you want your AGI to learn at anything approaching biological speeds, it appears that you absolutely MUST transform your AGI structure to a NN-like representation, regardless of the structure of the processor on which it runs. Unless I am missing something really important here, this should COMPLETELY transform the AGI field, regardless of the particular approach taken. Any thoughts? Steve Richfield
Re: [agi] Relevance of SE in AGI
Valentina, Having written http://www.DrEliza.com, several NN programs, and LOT of financial applications, and holding a CDP - widely recognized in financial programming circles, here are my comments. The real world is a little different than the theoretical world of CS, in that people want results rather than proofs. However, especially in the financial world, errors CAN be expensive. Hence, the usual approaches involve extensive internal checking (lots of Assert statements, etc.), careful code reviews (that often uncover errors that testing just can't catch because a tester may not think of all of the ways that a piece of code might be stressed), and code-coverage analysis to identify what has NOT been exercise/exorcised. I write AI software pretty much the same way that I have written financial software. Note that really good internal checking can almost replace early testing, because as soon as something produces garbage, it will almost immediately get caught. Hence, just write it and throw it into the rest of the code, and let its environment test it. Initially, it might contain temporary code to display its results, which will soon get yanked when everything looks OK. Finally, really good error handling is an absolute MUST, because no such complex application is ever completely wrung out. If it isn't fail-soft, then it probably will never ever make it as a product. This pretty much excuses C/C++ from consideration, but still leaves C# in the running. I prefer programming in environments that check everything possible, like Visual Basic or .NET. These save a LOT of debugging effort by catching nearly all of the really hard bugs that languages like C/C++ seem to make in bulk. Further, when you think that your application is REALLY wrung out, you can then re-compile with most of the error checking turned off to get C-like speed. Note that these things can also be said for Java, but most implementations don't provide compilers that can turn off error checking, which cuts their speed to ~1/3 that of other approaches. Losing 2/3 of the speed is a high price to pay for a platform. Steve Richfield == On 12/20/08, Valentina Poletti jamwa...@gmail.com wrote: I have a question for you AGIers.. from your experience as well as from your background, how relevant do you think software engineering is in developing AI software and, in particular AGI software? Just wondering.. does software verification as well as correctness proving serve any use in this field? Or is this something used just for Nasa and critical applications? Valentina -- *agi* | Archives https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ | Modifyhttps://www.listbox.com/member/?;Your Subscription http://www.listbox.com/ --- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=123753653-47f84b Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] Building a machine that can learn from experience
Richard, On 12/18/08, Richard Loosemore r...@lightlink.com wrote: Rafael C.P. wrote: Cognitive computing: Building a machine that can learn from experience http://www.physorg.com/news148754667.html Neuroscience vaporware. It isn't neuroscience yet, because they haven't done any science yet. It isn't vaporware yet because they have made no claims of functionality. In short, it has a LONG way to go before it can be considered to be neuroscience vaporware. Indeed, this article failed to make any case for any rational hope for success. Steve Richfield --- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=123753653-47f84b Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] Should I get a PhD?
Yan, Your quest incorporates some questionable presumptions, that you will literally be betting your (future) life on. 1. That AGI as presently conceived won't be just another dead end along the way to intelligent machines. There have already been several dead ends and the present incarnation of AGI implicitly presumes that there will be no solution to the fast learning problem (that I think I have a solution to). If the present incarnation of AGI falls to the wayside, your unipolar background would provide excellent qualifications for the unemployment line. 2. AGI is already becoming politicized, meaning that by the time you get your PhD, all of the good leadership slots will be filled with people who will be jealously guarding them from upstarts (like you will then be). However, your PhD will still help you get a good minimum wage job as an intern somewhere. It appears that the only really good reason to get a PhD is to raise money for a startup. If you have a personality for gladhanding investors, promoting technologies, writing and presenting business plans, etc., then I would strongly recommend your getting a PhD. However, if you see your path as running in other directions, then you might want to reconsider. Lotsa luck, Steve Richfield --- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=123753653-47f84b Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] Vector processing and AGI
Ben, On 12/12/08, Ben Goertzel b...@goertzel.org wrote: There isn't much that an MIMD machine can do better than a similar-sized SIMD machine. Hey, that's just not true. There are loads of math theorems disproving this assertion... Oops, I left out the presumed adjective real-world. Of course there are countless diophantine equations and other math trivia that aren't vectorizable. However, anything resembling a brain in that the process can be done by billions of slow components must by its very nature vectorizable. Hence, in the domain of our discussions, I think my statement still holds I'm not so sure, but for me to explore this area would require a lot of time and I don't feel like allocating it right now... No need, so long as 1. You see some possible future path to vectorizability, and 2. My or similar vector processor chips aren't a reality yet. I'm also not so sure our current models of brain mechanisms or dynamics are anywhere near accurate, but that's another issue... I finally cracked thetheory of everything in cognition puzzle discussed here ~4 months ago, which comes with an understanding of the super-fast learning observed in biological systems, e.g. visual systems the tune themselves up in the first few seconds after an animal's eyes open for the first time. I am now trying to translate it from Steveze to readable English which hopefully should be done in a week or so. Also, insofar as possible, I am translating all formulas into grammatically correct English statements, for the mathematically challenged readers. Unless I missed something really BIG, it will change everything from AGI to NN to ???. Most especially, AGI is largely predicated on the INability to perform such fast learning, which is where experts enter the picture. With this theory, modifying present AGI approaches to learn fast shouldn't be all that difficult. After any off-line volunteers have first had their crack, I'll post it here for everyone to beat it up. Do I hear any volunteers out there in Cyberspace who want to help hold my feet to the fire off-line regarding those pesky little details that so often derail grand theories? Indeed, AGI and physics simulation may be two of the app areas that have the easiest times making use of these 80-core chips... I don't think Intel is even looking at these. They are targeting embedded applications. Well, my bet is that a main app of multicore chips is ultimately gonna be gaming ... and gaming will certainly make use of fancy physics simulation ... Present gaming video chips have special processors that are designed to perform the 3D to 2D transformations needed for gaming, and for maintaining 3D models. It is hard (though not impossible) compete with custom hardware that has been refined for a particular application. Also, it would seem to be a terrible waste of tens of terraflops just to operate a video game. and I'm betting it will also make use of early-stage AGI... There is already some of that creeping into some games, including actors who perform complex jobs in changing virtual envrionments. Steve Richfield --- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=123753653-47f84b Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] Vector processing and AGI
Andi and Ben, On 12/12/08, wann...@ababian.com wann...@ababian.com wrote: I don't remember what references there were earlier in this thread, but I just saw a link on reddit to some guys in Israel using a GPU to greatly accelerate a Bayesian net. That's certainly an AI application: http://www.cs.technion.ac.il/~marks/docs/SumProductPaper.pdf http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/7j1gr/accelerating_bayesian_network_200x_using_a_gpu/ My son was trying to get me interested in doing this ~3 years ago, but I blew him off because I couldn't see a workable business model around it. It is 100% dependent on pasting together a bunch of hardware that is designed to do something ELSE, and even a tiny product change would throw software compatibility and other things out the window. Also, the architecture I am proposing promises ~3 orders of magnitude more speed, along with a really fast global memory that completely obviates the.complex caching they are proposing. Steve Richfield --- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=123753653-47f84b Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] Seeking CYC critiques PS
information do you get from this movie, that might prospectively affect your future actions, that couldn't prospectively be put into words. A friend of mine once fought and killed an attacking St Bernard dog with his bare hands. While I suspect that a movie of this would have been spectacular, the USEFUL information is how it is possible to kill a vicious attacking animal with your bear hands. Secret - when they lunge to bite you, you cram your fist as far down their throat as is humanly possible and then expand it to block their airway. Of course, this expansion would NOT be visible on a movie. The animal then suffocates as the battle continues. This fellow has the scars on his upper arms that show what this fight must have been like. Here, a still picture wouldn't convey much more useful information than a description, but sometimes, a picture really IS worth a thousand words in proving a point. And here's the reason I talk about understanding metacognitively about imaginative intelligence. (I don't mean to be disparaging - I understand comparably little re logic, say]. If you were a filmmaker, say, and had thought about the problems of filmmaking, you would probably be alive to the difference between what images show - people's actual faces and voices - and what they can't show - what lies behind - their hidden thoughts and emotions. And you wouldn't have posed your objection. We obviously still have some issues regarding data vs. prospectively useful information to iron out. Steve Richfield === MT:: *Even words for individuals are generalisations. *Ben Goertzel is a continuously changing reality. At 10.05 pm he will be different from 10.00pm, and so on. He is in fact many individuals. *Any statement about an individual, like Ben Goertzel, is also vague and open-ended. *The only way to refer to and capture individuals with high (though not perfect) precision is with images. *A movie of Ben chatting from 10.00pm to 10.05pm will be subject to extremely few possible interpretations, compared with a verbal statement about him. Even better than a movie, I had some opportunity to observe and interact with Ben during CONVERGENCE08, I dispute the above statement! I had sought to extract just a few specific bits of information from/about Ben. Using VERY specific examples: Bit#1: Did Ben understand that AI/AGI code and NN representation were interchangeable, at the prospective cost of some performance one way or the other. Bit#1=TRUE. Bit#2: Did Ben realize that there were prospectively ~3 orders of magnitude in speed available by running NN instead of AI/AGI representation on an array processor instead of a scalar (x86) processor. Bit#2 affected by question, now True, but utility disputed by the apparent unavailability of array processors. Bit#3: Did Ben realize that the prospective emergence of array processors (e.g. as I have been promoting) would obsolete much of his present work, because its structure isn't vectorizable, so he is in effect betting on continued stagnation in processor architecture, and may in fact be a small component in a large industry failure by denying market? Bit#3= probably FALSE. As always, I attempted to get the measure of the man, but as so often happens with leaders, there just isn't a bin to toss them in. Without an appropriate bin, I got lots of raw data (e.g., he has a LOT of hair), but not all that much usable data. Alternatively, the Director of RD for Google had a bin waiting for him, as like SO many people who rise to the top of narrowly-focused organizations, he had completely bought into the myths at Google without allowing for usurping technologies. I saw the same thing at Microsoft when I examined their RD operations in 1995. It takes a particular sort of narrow mind to rise to the top of a narrowly-focused organization. Here, there aren't many bits of description about the individuals, but I could easily write a book about thebin that the purest of them rise to fill. Steve Richfield -- *agi* | Archives https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ | Modifyhttps://www.listbox.com/member/?;Your Subscription http://www.listbox.com/ -- *agi* | Archives https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ | Modifyhttps://www.listbox.com/member/?;Your Subscription http://www.listbox.com/ --- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=123753653-47f84b Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] Vector processing and AGI
Ben,
Before I comment on your reply, note that my former posting was about my
PERCEPTION rather than the REALITY of your understanding, with the
difference being taken up in the answer being less than 1.00 bit of
information.
Anyway, that said, on with a VERY interesting (to me) subject.
On 12/11/08, Ben Goertzel b...@goertzel.org wrote:
Well, the conceptual and mathematical algorithms of NCE and OCP
(my AI systems under development) would go more naturally on MIMD
parallel systems than on SIMD (e.g. vector) or SISD systems.
There isn't much that an MIMD machine can do better than a similar-sized
SIMD machine. The usual problem is in finding a way to make such a large
SIMD machine. Anyway, my proposed architecture (now under consideration at
AMD) also provides for limited MIMD operation, where the processors could be
at different places in a single complex routine.
Anyway, I was looking at a 10,000:1 speedup over SISD, and then giving up
~10:1 to go from probabilistic logic equations to matrices that do the same
things, which is how I came up with the 1000:1 from the prior posting.
I played around a bunch with MIMD parallel code on the Connection Machine
at ANU, back in the 90s
The challenge is in geometry - figuring out how to get the many processors
to communicate and coordinate with each other without spending 99% of their
cycles in coordination and communication.
However, indeed the specific software code we've written for NCE and OCP
is intended for contemporary {distributed networks of multiprocessor
machines}
rather than vector machines or Connection Machines or whatever...
If vector processing were to become a superior practical option for AGI,
what would happen to the code in OCP or NCE?
That would depend heavily on the vector architecture, of course.
But one viable possibility is: the AtomTable, ProcedureRepository and
other knowledge stores remain the same ... and the math tools like the
PLN rules/formulas and Reduct rules remain the same ... but the MindAgents
that use the former to carry out cognitive processes get totally
rewritten...
I presume that everything is table driven, so the code could completely
vectorized to execute the table on any sort of architecture including SIMD.
However, if you are actually executing CODE, e.g. as compiled from a reality
representation, then things would be difficult for an SIMD architecture,
though again, you could also interpret tables containing the same
information at the usual 10:1 slowdown, which is what I was expecting
anyway.
This would be a big deal, but not the kind of thing that means you have to
scrap all your implementation work and go back to ground zero
That's what I figured.
OO and generic design patterns do buy you *something* ...
OO is often impossible to vectorize.
Vector processors aside, though ... it would be a much *smaller*
deal to tweak my AI systems to run on the 100-core chips Intel
will likely introduce within the next decade.
There is an 80-core chip due out any time now. Intel has had BIG problems
finding anything to run on them, so I suspect that they would be more than
glad to give you a few if you promise to do something with them.
I listened to an inter-processor communications plan for the 80 core chip
last summer, and it sounded SLOW - like there was no reasonable plan for
global memory. I suspect that your plan in effect requires FAST global
memory (to avoid crushing communications bottlenecks), and this is NOT
entirely simple on MIMD architectures.
My SIMD architecture will deliver equivalent global memory speeds of ~100x
the clock speed, which still makes it a high-overhead operation on a machine
that peaks out at ~20K operations per clock cycle.
Steve Richfield
---
agi
Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now
RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/
Modify Your Subscription:
https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=123753653-47f84b
Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] Vector processing and AGI
Ben, On 12/11/08, Ben Goertzel b...@goertzel.org wrote: There isn't much that an MIMD machine can do better than a similar-sized SIMD machine. Hey, that's just not true. There are loads of math theorems disproving this assertion... Oops, I left out the presumed adjective real-world. Of course there are countless diophantine equations and other math trivia that aren't vectorizable. However, anything resembling a brain in that the process can be done by billions of slow components must by its very nature vectorizable. Hence, in the domain of our discussions, I think my statement still holds OO and generic design patterns do buy you *something* ... OO is often impossible to vectorize. The point is that we've used OO design to wrap up all processor-intensive code inside specific objects, which could then be rewritten to be vector-processing friendly... As long as the OO is at a high enough level so as not to gobble up a bunch of time in the SISD control processor, then no problem. There is an 80-core chip due out any time now. Intel has had BIG problems finding anything to run on them, so I suspect that they would be more than glad to give you a few if you promise to do something with them. Indeed, AGI and physics simulation may be two of the app areas that have the easiest times making use of these 80-core chips... I don't think Intel is even looking at these. They are targeting embedded applications. Steve Richfield --- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=123753653-47f84b Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] Machine Knowledge and Inverse Machine Knowledge...
Russell, On 12/10/08, Russell Wallace [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Wed, Dec 10, 2008 at 5:47 AM, Steve Richfield [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I don't see how, because it is completely unbounded and HIGHLY related to specific platforms and products. I could envision a version that worked for a specific class of problems on a particular platform, but it would probably be more work than it was worth UNLESS the user-base were really large, e.g. it might work well for something like Microsoft Windows or Office. Okay, Windows or Office would seem like reasonable targets. Now, if Microsoft were only willing to both pay for it and to provide the super-expert(s) to help program it, as I certainly don't know the common subtle traps that users typically fall into. I already had circuit board repair in my sights. Perhaps you recall the story of Eleanor my daughter observing the incredible parallels between difficult circuit board repair and chronic illnesses? I recall a mention of it, but no details; have a link handy? It's on the History part of the Dr. Eliza site. I could probably rough out a KB for this in ~1 week of work. I'm just not sure what to do with it once done. Did you have a customer or marketing idea in mind? I hadn't thought that far ahead, but given how much money is spent every year by people covering the size range from the punter trying to keep an old banger on the road up to the armed forces of NATO on maintaining and repairing equipment, I'd be astonished if there wasn't a market there for any tool that could make a real contribution. Maybe I should adopt the ORCAD model, where I provide it for free for a while, then start inching the price up and UP and UP. Steve Richfield --- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=120640061-aded06 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] Seeking CYC critiques PS
Mike, On 12/10/08, Mike Tintner [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: *Even words for individuals are generalisations. *Ben Goertzel is a continuously changing reality. At 10.05 pm he will be different from 10.00pm, and so on. He is in fact many individuals. *Any statement about an individual, like Ben Goertzel, is also vague and open-ended. *The only way to refer to and capture individuals with high (though not perfect) precision is with images. *A movie of Ben chatting from 10.00pm to 10.05pm will be subject to extremely few possible interpretations, compared with a verbal statement about him. Even better than a movie, I had some opportunity to observe and interact with Ben during CONVERGENCE08, I dispute the above statement! I had sought to extract just a few specific bits of information from/about Ben. Using VERY specific examples: Bit#1: Did Ben understand that AI/AGI code and NN representation were interchangeable, at the prospective cost of some performance one way or the other. Bit#1=TRUE. Bit#2: Did Ben realize that there were prospectively ~3 orders of magnitude in speed available by running NN instead of AI/AGI representation on an array processor instead of a scalar (x86) processor. Bit#2 affected by question, now True, but utility disputed by the apparent unavailability of array processors. Bit#3: Did Ben realize that the prospective emergence of array processors (e.g. as I have been promoting) would obsolete much of his present work, because its structure isn't vectorizable, so he is in effect betting on continued stagnation in processor architecture, and may in fact be a small component in a large industry failure by denying market? Bit#3= probably FALSE. As always, I attempted to get the measure of the man, but as so often happens with leaders, there just isn't a bin to toss them in. Without an appropriate bin, I got lots of raw data (e.g., he has a LOT of hair), but not all that much usable data. Alternatively, the Director of RD for Google had a bin waiting for him, as like SO many people who rise to the top of narrowly-focused organizations, he had completely bought into the myths at Google without allowing for usurping technologies. I saw the same thing at Microsoft when I examined their RD operations in 1995. It takes a particular sort of narrow mind to rise to the top of a narrowly-focused organization. Here, there aren't many bits of description about the individuals, but I could easily write a book about thebin that the purest of them rise to fill. Steve Richfield --- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=120640061-aded06 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
[agi] Machine Knowledge and Inverse Machine Knowledge...
Larry Lefkowitz, Stephen Reed, et al, First, Thanks Steve for your pointer to Larry Lefkowitz, and thanks Larry for so much time and effort in trying to relate our two approaches.. After discussions with Larry Lefkowitz of Cycorp, I have had a bit of an epiphany regarding machine knowledge that I would like to share for all to comment on... First, it wasn't as though there were points of incompatibility between Cycorp's idea of machine knowledge and that used in DrEliza.com, but rather, there were no apparent points of connection. How could two related things be so completely different, especially when both are driven by the real world? Then it struck me. Cycorp and others here on this forum seek to represent the structures of real world domains in a machine, whereas Dr. Eliza seeks only to represent the structure of the malfunctions within structures, while making no attempt whatever to represent the structures in which those malfunctions occur, as though those malfunctions have their very own structure, as they truly do. This seems a bit like simulating the holes in a semiconductor. OF COURSE there were no points of connection. Larry pointed out the limitations in my approach - which I already knew, namely, Dr. Eliza will NEVER EVER understand normal operation when all it has to go on are *AB*normalities. Similarly, I pointed out that Cycorp's approach had the inverse problem, in that it would probably take the quadrillion dollars that Matt Mahoney keeps talking about to ever understand malfunctions starting from the wrong side (as seen from Dr. Eliza's viewpoint) of things. In short, I see both of these as being quite valid but completely incompatible approaches, that accomplish very different things via very different methods. Each could move toward the other's capabilities given infinite resources, but only a madman (like Matt Mahoney?) would ever throw money at such folly. Back to my reason for contacting Cycorp - to see if some sort of web standard to represent metadata could be hammered out. Neither Larry nor I could see how Dr. Eliza's approach could be adapted to Cycorp, and further, this is aside from Cycorp's present interests. Hence, I am on my own here. Hence, it is my present viewpoint that I should proceed with my present standard to accompany the only semi-commercial program that models * malfunctions* rather than the real world, somewhat akin to the original Eliza program. However, I should prominently label the standard and appropriate fields therein appropriately so that there is no future confusion between machine knowledge and Dr. Eliza's sort of inverse machine knowledge. Any thoughts? Steve Richfield --- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=120640061-aded06 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] Machine Knowledge and Inverse Machine Knowledge...
Matt, It appears that either you completely missed the point in my earlier post, that Knowledge + Inverse Knowledge ~= Understanding (hopefully) There are few things in the world that are known SO well that from direct knowledge thereof that you can directly infer all potential modes of failure. Especially with things that have been engineered (or divinely created), or evolved (vs accidental creations like mountains), the failures tend to come in the FLAWS in the understanding of their creators. Alternatively, it is possible to encode just the flaws, which tend to spread via cause and effect chains and easily step out of the apparent structure. A really good example is where a designer with a particular misunderstanding of something produces a design that is prone to certain sorts of failures in many subsystems. Of course, these failures are the next step in the cause and effect chain that started with his flawed education and have nothing at all to do with the interrelationships of the systems that are failing. Continuing... On 12/9/08, Matt Mahoney [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Steve, the difference between Cyc and Dr. Eliza is that Cyc has much more knowledge. Cyc has millions of rules. The OpenCyc download is hundreds of MB compressed. Several months ago you posted the database file for Dr. Eliza. I recall it was a few hundred rules and I think under 1 MB. You have inadvertently made my point, that in areas of inverse knowledge that OpenCyc with its hundreds of MBs of data still falls short of Dr. Eliza with 1% of that knowledge. Similarly, Dr. Eliza's structure would prohibit it from being able to answer even simple questions regardless of the size of its KB. This is because OpenCyc is generally concerned with how things work, rather than how they fail, while Dr. Eliza comes at this from the other end. Both of these databases are far too small for AGI because neither has solved the learning problem. ... Which was exactly my point when I referenced the quadrillion dollars you mentioned. If you want to be able to do interesting things for only ~$1M or so, no problem IF you stick to an appropriate corner of the knowledge (as Dr. Eliza does). However, if come out of the corners, then be prepared to throw your $1Q at it. Note here that I am NOT disputing your ~$1Q, but rather I am using it to show that the approach is inefficient, especially if some REALLY valuable parts of what it might bring, namely, the solutions to many of the most difficult problems, can come pretty cheaply, ESPECIALLY if you get your proposal working.. Are we on the same page now? Steve Richfield -- *From:* Steve Richfield [EMAIL PROTECTED] *To:* agi@v2.listbox.com *Sent:* Tuesday, December 9, 2008 3:06:08 AM *Subject:* [agi] Machine Knowledge and Inverse Machine Knowledge... Larry Lefkowitz, Stephen Reed, et al, First, Thanks Steve for your pointer to Larry Lefkowitz, and thanks Larry for so much time and effort in trying to relate our two approaches.. After discussions with Larry Lefkowitz of Cycorp, I have had a bit of an epiphany regarding machine knowledge that I would like to share for all to comment on... First, it wasn't as though there were points of incompatibility between Cycorp's idea of machine knowledge and that used in DrEliza.com, but rather, there were no apparent points of connection. How could two related things be so completely different, especially when both are driven by the real world? Then it struck me. Cycorp and others here on this forum seek to represent the structures of real world domains in a machine, whereas Dr. Eliza seeks only to represent the structure of the malfunctions within structures, while making no attempt whatever to represent the structures in which those malfunctions occur, as though those malfunctions have their very own structure, as they truly do. This seems a bit like simulating the holes in a semiconductor. OF COURSE there were no points of connection. Larry pointed out the limitations in my approach - which I already knew, namely, Dr. Eliza will NEVER EVER understand normal operation when all it has to go on are *AB*normalities. Similarly, I pointed out that Cycorp's approach had the inverse problem, in that it would probably take the quadrillion dollars that Matt Mahoney keeps talking about to ever understand malfunctions starting from the wrong side (as seen from Dr. Eliza's viewpoint) of things. In short, I see both of these as being quite valid but completely incompatible approaches, that accomplish very different things via very different methods. Each could move toward the other's capabilities given infinite resources, but only a madman (like Matt Mahoney?) would ever throw money at such folly. Back to my reason for contacting Cycorp - to see if some sort of web standard to represent metadata could be hammered out. Neither Larry nor I could see how Dr. Eliza's approach could
Re: [agi] Machine Knowledge and Inverse Machine Knowledge...
Russell, On 12/9/08, Russell Wallace [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: As an application domain for Dr. Eliza, medicine has the obvious advantage of usefulness, but the disadvantage that it's hard to assess performance -- specific data is largely unavailable for privacy reasons, and most of us lack the expertise to properly assess it even if it were available. I think this is like dog food - if the dogs like it, then it is a success. I suspect that its monetary value will far more relate to people liking it than to its success rate. IMHO, it all has much to do with the structure of the corner it occupies, and has little to do with the specific Dr. Eliza technology. If there are a few oddball conditions that it must deal with and everything else is handled by the professionals, then it will be a wild success. If there are a large number of disjoint unlikely things for it to deal with in its corner, no super-experts to program it, and no relatively clean boundary between its last resort corner and ordinary professional technology, then it will probably be a failure. Medicine fits this well because pretty much everything is covered EXCEPT central metabolic control problems, malnutrition, and inadvertent poisoning. Is there any chance of applying it to debugging software, I don't see how, because it is completely unbounded and HIGHLY related to specific platforms and products. I could envision a version that worked for a specific class of problems on a particular platform, but it would probably be more work than it was worth UNLESS the user-base were really large, e.g. it might work well for something like Microsoft Windows or Office. or repairing machines? I already had circuit board repair in my sights. Perhaps you recall the story of Eleanor my daughter observing the incredible parallels between difficult circuit board repair and chronic illnesses? Here, the technology has not progressed all that much in the last 40 years, and most of the really clever methods for finding elusive problems that stump the experts have nothing at all to do with the specific circuits. As a bonus, these methods are NOT taught in engineering schools and many are NOT widely known. Engineers are notoriously bad at repairing their own designs - which further illustrates the potential need. I could probably rough out a KB for this in ~1 week of work. I'm just not sure what to do with it once done. Did you have a customer or marketing idea in mind? Steve Richfield --- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=120640061-aded06 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] Machine Knowledge and Inverse Machine Knowledge...
Matt, On 12/9/08, Matt Mahoney [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: No, I don't believe that Dr. Eliza knows nothing about normal health, or that Cyc knows nothing about illness. Of course you are right. In Dr. Eliza's case, it is quick to ask questions to establish subsystem normalcy to eliminate candidate problems. Further, Cyc already has long lists of malfunctions for every subsystem. However, Dr. Eliza can't do anything with normalcy other than dismissing certain specific abnormalities, and Cyc can't do much of anything with an abnormality other than parroting information out about it when asked. Now, it you want either of these programs to really USE their knowledge structure to do much more than just checking something off or parroting something out, then you quickly see the distinction that I was pointing out. Steve Richfield -- *From:* Steve Richfield [EMAIL PROTECTED] *To:* agi@v2.listbox.com *Sent:* Tuesday, December 9, 2008 3:21:18 PM *Subject:* Re: [agi] Machine Knowledge and Inverse Machine Knowledge... Matt, It appears that either you completely missed the point in my earlier post, that Knowledge + Inverse Knowledge ~= Understanding (hopefully) There are few things in the world that are known SO well that from direct knowledge thereof that you can directly infer all potential modes of failure. Especially with things that have been engineered (or divinely created), or evolved (vs accidental creations like mountains), the failures tend to come in the FLAWS in the understanding of their creators. Alternatively, it is possible to encode just the flaws, which tend to spread via cause and effect chains and easily step out of the apparent structure. A really good example is where a designer with a particular misunderstanding of something produces a design that is prone to certain sorts of failures in many subsystems. Of course, these failures are the next step in the cause and effect chain that started with his flawed education and have nothing at all to do with the interrelationships of the systems that are failing. Continuing... On 12/9/08, Matt Mahoney [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Steve, the difference between Cyc and Dr. Eliza is that Cyc has much more knowledge. Cyc has millions of rules. The OpenCyc download is hundreds of MB compressed. Several months ago you posted the database file for Dr. Eliza. I recall it was a few hundred rules and I think under 1 MB. You have inadvertently made my point, that in areas of inverse knowledge that OpenCyc with its hundreds of MBs of data still falls short of Dr. Eliza with 1% of that knowledge. Similarly, Dr. Eliza's structure would prohibit it from being able to answer even simple questions regardless of the size of its KB. This is because OpenCyc is generally concerned with how things work, rather than how they fail, while Dr. Eliza comes at this from the other end. Both of these databases are far too small for AGI because neither has solved the learning problem. ... Which was exactly my point when I referenced the quadrillion dollars you mentioned. If you want to be able to do interesting things for only ~$1M or so, no problem IF you stick to an appropriate corner of the knowledge (as Dr. Eliza does). However, if come out of the corners, then be prepared to throw your $1Q at it. Note here that I am NOT disputing your ~$1Q, but rather I am using it to show that the approach is inefficient, especially if some REALLY valuable parts of what it might bring, namely, the solutions to many of the most difficult problems, can come pretty cheaply, ESPECIALLY if you get your proposal working.. Are we on the same page now? Steve Richfield -- *From:* Steve Richfield [EMAIL PROTECTED] *To:* agi@v2.listbox.com *Sent:* Tuesday, December 9, 2008 3:06:08 AM *Subject:* [agi] Machine Knowledge and Inverse Machine Knowledge... Larry Lefkowitz, Stephen Reed, et al, First, Thanks Steve for your pointer to Larry Lefkowitz, and thanks Larry for so much time and effort in trying to relate our two approaches.. After discussions with Larry Lefkowitz of Cycorp, I have had a bit of an epiphany regarding machine knowledge that I would like to share for all to comment on... First, it wasn't as though there were points of incompatibility between Cycorp's idea of machine knowledge and that used in DrEliza.com, but rather, there were no apparent points of connection. How could two related things be so completely different, especially when both are driven by the real world? Then it struck me. Cycorp and others here on this forum seek to represent the structures of real world domains in a machine, whereas Dr. Eliza seeks only to represent the structure of the malfunctions within structures, while making no attempt whatever to represent the structures in which those malfunctions occur, as though those malfunctions have their very own
Re: [agi] Religious attitudes to NBIC technologies
Everyone, The problem here is that WE don't have anything to point to as OUR religion, so that everyone else has the power of stupidity in general and the 1st amendment in particular, yet we don't have any such power. I believe that it is possible to fill in this gap, but I don't wish to discuss incomplete solutions on public forums. However, if you have any ideas just how OUR religion should be structured, then please feel free to send them to me, preferably off-line. It would be a real shame to do a bad job of this, so I'm keeping my detailed thoughts to myself pending a live birth. Note Buddhism's belief structure that does NOT include a Deity. Note Islam's various provisions for unbelievers to get a free pass, and sometimes even break a rule here and there, so long as they pretend to believe. Any thoughts? Steve Richfield On 12/8/08, Philip Hunt [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: 2008/12/8 Bob Mottram [EMAIL PROTECTED]: People who are highly religious tend to be very past positive according the Zimbardo classification of people according to their temporal orientation. [...] I agree that in time we will see more polarization around a variety of technology related issues. You're probably right. Part of the problem is that these people [correctly] believe that science and technology are destroying their worldview. And as the gaps in scientific knowledge decrease, there's less roo for the God of the gaps to occupy. Having said that, I'm not aware that nanotechnology or AI are specifically prohibited by any of the major religions. And if one society forgoes science, they'll just get outcompeted by their neighbours. -- Philip Hunt, [EMAIL PROTECTED] Please avoid sending me Word or PowerPoint attachments. See http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html --- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?; Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com --- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=120640061-aded06 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] Seeking CYC critiques
Matt, On 12/6/08, Matt Mahoney [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- On Sat, 12/6/08, Steve Richfield [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Internet AGIs are the technology of the future, and always will be. There will NEVER EVER in a million years be a thinking Internet silicon intelligence that will be able to solve substantial real-world problems based only on what exists on the Internet. I think that my prior email was pretty much a closed-form proof of that. However, there are MUCH simpler methods that work TODAY, given the metadata that is presently missing from the Internet. The internet has about 10^14 to 10^15 bits of knowledge as searchable text. AGI requires 10^17 to 10^18 bits. This presumes that there isn't some sort of agent at work that filters a particular important type of information, so that even a googol of text wouldn't be any closer. As I keep explaining, that agent is there and working well, to filter the two things that I keep mentioning. Hence, you are WRONG here. If we assume that the internet doubles every 1.5 to 2 years with Moore's Law, then we should have enough knowledge in 15-20 years. Unfortunately, I won't double my own postings, and few others will double their own output. Sure, there will be some additional enlargement of the Internet, but its growth is linear once past its introduction, which we are, and short of exponential growth of population, which is on a scale of a century or so. In short, Moore's law simply doesn't apply here, any more than 9 women can make a baby in a month. However, much of this new knowledge is video, so we also need to solve vision and speech along with language. Which of course has been stymied by the lack of metadata - my point all along. While VERY interesting, your proposal appears to leave the following important questions unanswered: 1. How is it an AGI? I suppose this is a matter of definitions. It looks to me more like a protocol. AGI means automating the economy so we don't have to work. It means not just solving the language and vision problems, but also training the equivalent of 10^10 humans to make money for us. After hardware costs come down, custom training for specialized roles will be the major expense. I proposed surveillance as the cheapest way for AGI to learn what we want. A cheaper alternative might be brain scanning, but we have not yet developed the technology. (It will be worth US$1 quadrillion if you can do it). Or another way to answer your question, AGI is a lot of dumb specialists plus an infrastructure to route messages to the right experts. I suspect that your definition here is unique. Perhaps other on this forum would like to proclaim which of us is right/wrong. I thought that the definition more or less included an intelligent *computer*. 2. As I explained earlier on this thread, all human-human languages have severe semantic limitations, such that (applying this to your porposal), only very rarely will there ever exist an answer that PRECISELY answers a question, so some sort of acceptable error must go into the equation. In the example you used in your paper, Jupiter is NOT the largest planet that is known, as the astronomers have identified larger planets in other solar systems. There may be a good solution to this, e.g. provide the 3 best answers that are semantically disjoint. People communicate in natural language 100 to 1000 times faster than any artificial language, in spite of its supposed limitations. Remember that the limiting cost is transferring knowledge from human brains to AGI, 10^17 to 10^18 bits at 2 bits per second per person. Unfortunately, when societal or perceptual filters are involved, there will remain HUGE holes in even an infinite body of data. Of course, our society has its problems precisely because of those holes, so more data doesn't necessarily get you any further. As for Jupiter, any question you ask is going to get more than one answer. This is not a new problem. http://www.google.com/search?q=what+is+the+largest+planet%3F In my proposal, peers compete for reputation and have a financial incentive to provide useful information to avoid being blocked or ignored in an economy where information has negative value. Great! At least that way, I know that the things I see will be good Christian content. This is why it is important for an AGI protocol to provide for secure authentication. 3. Your paper addresses question answering, which as I have explained here in the past, is a much lower form of art than is problem solving, where you simply state an unsatisfactory situation and let the computer figure out why things are as they are and how to improve them. Problem solving pre-dates AGI by decades. We know how to solve problems in many narrow domains. The problem I address is finding the right experts. Hmmm, an even higher form, but will it work? In my experience of solving a few cases having supposedly incurable
Re: [agi] Seeking CYC critiques
Matt, On 12/4/08, Matt Mahoney [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- On Wed, 12/3/08, Steve Richfield [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I appears obvious to me that the first person who proposes the following things together as a workable standard, will own the future 'web. This because the world will enter the metadata faster than anyone is going to build a semantic web or anything like it without these items. In short, this is a sort of calculated retrograde step to get the goodies NOW and not sometime in the future. I disagree. Google has already figured out the semantic web. People communicate in natural language 100 to 1000 times faster than in any artificial language. Time is money. We seem to have a disconnection here, which we each blame on the other. I'll reiterate my point in different words to hopefully drill down into the disconnection... If only people included two absolutely critical pieces of metadata in their postings, then you and Google would be absolutely right. Unfortunately, they do NOT ever include this metadata, and it simply cannot be gleaned from the postings themselves. As explained before, these include: 1. The syntax of statements of differential symptomology, in short, what people/machines/countries who/that have a particular condition typically say to communicate a symptom that is DIFFERENT what what people say who have a similar symptom of something quite different. This typically requires an EXPERIENCED human expert to code. 2. Carefully constructed questions to elicit statements meeting criteria #1 above. No one has yet proposed ANY way of mining the Internet to engage in useful problem solving without these two pieces of metadata, yet supposedly smart people continue wasting their efforts and other people's money on such folly. Perhaps in years to come, people can omit some/all of this metadata and future AI interfaces to the web will still work, bit I simply see no reason to wait until then to smarten the 'web. Once the metadata is in place, any bright programmer can implement theInternet Singularity by simply populating his tables based on the metadata. What? According to http://www.dreliza.com/singularity.php the singularity already happened in 2001 when Steve Richfield had his intelligence greatly increased... :-) It had to start somewhere. Only time will tell if this statement is correct, so it is useless to argue this point right now. Whether or not I and my efforts continue the thread the ultimately succeeds, I have little doubt that whatever happens will include someone who has had their intelligence greatly increased with my or similar methods. This certainly provides a MUCH better jumping off point to singularities of all sorts than anyone else has yet proposed. The passage you quoted from contains a detailed explanation of how this works, and I'll gladly help anyone who wants to follow this path through the process of collecting another ~20 IQ points in just one difficult day (following ~2 weeks of preparation, and followed by months of recovery). Note that this ONLY works for smart people (which probably includes everyone on this forum) who now have low daytime body temperatures, a condition known as central hypothermia (which probably excludes 50% of the people here). The quick screening test is seeing if your temperature stays 98.2F, even in the afternoon when it should be at its highest and usually reaching ~99F for helathy people. This will also fix numerous minor health problems that you may already have. BTW, for easier demos, http://DrEliza.com has new knowledge that should be wrung out in the next few days, on how to save teeth that your dentist says are hopeless and absolutely must be extracted. I had a lot of really bad dentistry long ago, and have been struggling to save what little is left ever since, and hence I have become quite expert in this domain. I still have at least some part of every tooth left. To illustrate, just yesterday, a third opinion yet again proclaimed my #31 molar to be headed for the garbage can. I then presented my plan to save ~half of it by extracting just the cracked, decayed, and unsalvageable root, keeping the remainder which would then be too weak to function on its own (and which might even break part of my jawbone if left as-is), and installing a 2-unit bridge to an adjacent tooth that had its own problems and was also weak, but to pressure in the opposite direction. Together, these two teeth should make one very good tooth - a little like one of the long molars in the back of a dog's mouth. Here, my methods were accepted and the various procedures are now being scheduled, even after a PhD dentist, an endodontist, and an oral surgeon (all board certified) had all proclaimed salvaging #31 to be completely hopeless until they heard my plan. The total cost will be ~half of that of an implant. #31 will become my 5th tooth to survive after being advised that extraction was the only viable option. Each
Re: [agi] Seeking CYC critiques
Matt, If your program can't handle natural language with all its ambiguities, then it isn't AGI. Internet AGIs are the technology of the future, and always will be. There will NEVER EVER in a million years be a thinking Internet silicon intelligence that will be able to solve substantial real-world problems based only on what exists on the Internet. I think that my prior email was pretty much a closed-form proof of that. However, there are MUCH simpler methods that work TODAY, given the metadata that is presently missing from the Internet. No one has yet proposed ANY way of mining the Internet to engage in useful problem solving without these two pieces of metadata, yet supposedly smart people continue wasting their efforts and other people's money on such folly. My AGI proposal ( http://www.mattmahoney.net/agi2.html ) uses natural language to communicate between peers. A peer is only required to understand a small subset, perhaps scanning for a few keywords and ignoring everything else. Individually, peers don't need to be very smart for the collective to achieve AGI. While VERY interesting, your proposal appears to leave the following important questions unanswered: 1. How is it an AGI? I suppose this is a matter of definitions. It looks to me more like a protocol. 2. As I explained earlier on this thread, all human-human languages have severe semantic limitations, such that (applying this to your porposal), only very rarely will there ever exist an answer that PRECISELY answers a question, so some sort of acceptable error must go into the equation. In the example you used in your paper, Jupiter is NOT the largest planet that is known, as the astronomers have identified larger planets in other solar systems. There may be a good solution to this, e.g. provide the 3 best answers that are semantically disjoint. 3. Your paper addresses question answering, which as I have explained here in the past, is a much lower form of art than is problem solving, where you simply state an unsatisfactory situation and let the computer figure out why things are as they are and how to improve them. Note that http://www.DrEliza.com makes no attempt to answer questions, or even work on easy problems (because they are too damn hard for Dr. Eliza), but rather, it confines itself to very difficult corners of chosen sub-domains. It may never be able to match an average doctor, but can easily handle the fallout from the best of them. It will never match an average dentist, but it can save a lot of teeth that the best of them have given up on. Of course, your approach COULD be easily extended to function in problem solving, by simply providing a mechanism for users to attach the metadata that I have mentioned is needed for problem solving. In short, I really like your proposal for an alternative Internet protocol, as the Internet obviously needs a bunch of them, because the present set is woefully inadequate. IMHO you should recast your proposal as an RFC and put it out there. It sounds like you could easily utilize a USENET group for early demos. Note that Microsoft maintains some test groups on some of its servers, that Dr. Eliza already uses without problems for its inter-incarnation communication. Steve Richfield --- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=120640061-aded06 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] Seeking CYC critiques
Steve, Based on your attached response, How about this alternative approach: Send (one of) them an email pointing out http://www.dreliza.com/standards.php which will obviously usurp their own efforts if they fail to participate, and offer them an opportunity to suggest amendments these standards to incorporate (some of) their own capabilities. Seeing that Dr. Eliza's approach is quite different, they should then figure out that their only choices are to join or die. I wonder how they would respond? You know these guys. How would YOU play this hand? Any thoughts? Steve Richfield On 12/2/08, Stephen Reed [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Steve Richfield said: If I understand you correctly, Cycorp's code should be *public domain*, and as such, I should be able to simply mine for the features that I am looking for. It sounds like Cycorp doesn't have a useful product (yet) whereas it looks like I do, so it is probably I who should be doing this, not Cycorp. Regretfully, the KRAKEN source code is not public domain, despite the fact that US tax dollars paid for it. While at Cycorp, John DeOliveira and I lobbied for an open-source version of Cyc, that one of us dubbed OpenCyc. Doug Lenat saw the advantages of releasing a limited form of Cyc technology, especially to preclude some other possible ontology from becoming the de facto standard ontology, e.g. for the Semantic Web. However, Cycorp is bedeviled by its own traditional, proprietary nature and Lenat did not want to release the source code for the object store, lisp runtime, inference engine, applications and utilities. The first release of OpenCyc that I prepared contained many, but not all, of the full Cyc concept terms, and their defining assertions. No rules, nor numerous other commonsense assertions about these concepts were released. The provided OpenCyc runtime was binary only, without source code, and with its HTML browser as its sole released application. A Java API to Cyc, that I wrote, was also released with its source code under the Apache License. The KRAKEN application is not provided with OpenCyc, and it was growing stale from lack of maintenance when I was let go from the company in August 2006. -Steve Stephen L. Reed Artificial Intelligence Researcher http://texai.org/blog http://texai.org 3008 Oak Crest Ave. Austin, Texas, USA 78704 512.791.7860 -- *From:* Steve Richfield [EMAIL PROTECTED] *To:* agi@v2.listbox.com *Sent:* Monday, December 1, 2008 10:22:37 PM *Subject:* Re: [agi] Seeking CYC critiques Steve, If I understand you correctly, Cycorp's code should be *public domain*, and as such, I should be able to simply mine for the features that I am looking for. It sounds like Cycorp doesn't have a useful product (yet) whereas it looks like I do, so it is probably I who should be doing this, not Cycorp. Any thoughts? Who should I ask for code from? Steve Richfield == On 12/1/08, Stephen Reed [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Steve Richfield said: KRAKEN contains lots of good ideas, several of which were already on my wish list for Dr. Eliza sometime in the future. I suspect that a merger of technologies might be a world-beater. I wonder if the folks at Cycorp would be interested in such an effort? If you can find a sponsor for the effort and then solicit Cycorp to join in collaboration, I believe that they would be interested. The Cycorp business model as I knew it back in 2006, depended mostly upon government research sponsorship to (1) accomplish the research that the sponsor wanted, e.g. produce deliverables for the DARPA Rapid Knowledge Formation project, and (2) incrementally add more facts and rules to the Cyc KB, write more supporting code for Cyc. Cycorp, did not then, and likely even now does not have internal funding for non-sponsored enhancements. -Steve Stephen L. Reed Artificial Intelligence Researcher http://texai.org/blog http://texai.org 3008 Oak Crest Ave. Austin, Texas, USA 78704 512.791.7860 -- *From:* Steve Richfield [EMAIL PROTECTED] *To:* agi@v2.listbox.com *Sent:* Monday, December 1, 2008 3:19:37 PM *Subject:* Re: [agi] Seeking CYC critiques Steve, The KRAKEN paper was quite interesting, and has a LOT in common with my own Dr. Eliza. However, I saw no mention of Dr. Eliza's secret sauce, that boosts it from answering questions to solving problems given symptoms. The secret sauce has two primary ingredients: 1. The syntax of differential symptom statements - how people state a symptom that separates it from similar symptoms of other conditions. 2. Questions, the answers to which will probably carry #1 above recognizable differential symptom statements. Both of the above seem to require domain *experienced* people to code, as book learning doesn't seem to convey what people typically say, or what you have to say to them
Re: [agi] Seeking CYC critiques
will be plainly resolved for all to see. Thanks very much for your independent view of this. Any more thoughts? Steve Richfield === On Wed, Dec 3, 2008 at 3:55 PM, Steve Richfield [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Steve, Based on your attached response, How about this alternative approach: Send (one of) them an email pointing out http://www.dreliza.com/standards.php which will obviously usurp their own efforts if they fail to participate, and offer them an opportunity to suggest amendments these standards to incorporate (some of) their own capabilities. Seeing that Dr. Eliza's approach is quite different, they should then figure out that their only choices are to join or die. I wonder how they would respond? You know these guys. How would YOU play this hand? Any thoughts? Steve Richfield On 12/2/08, Stephen Reed [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Steve Richfield said: If I understand you correctly, Cycorp's code should be public domain, and as such, I should be able to simply mine for the features that I am looking for. It sounds like Cycorp doesn't have a useful product (yet) whereas it looks like I do, so it is probably I who should be doing this, not Cycorp. Regretfully, the KRAKEN source code is not public domain, despite the fact that US tax dollars paid for it. While at Cycorp, John DeOliveira and I lobbied for an open-source version of Cyc, that one of us dubbed OpenCyc. Doug Lenat saw the advantages of releasing a limited form of Cyc technology, especially to preclude some other possible ontology from becoming the de facto standard ontology, e.g. for the Semantic Web. However, Cycorp is bedeviled by its own traditional, proprietary nature and Lenat did not want to release the source code for the object store, lisp runtime, inference engine, applications and utilities. The first release of OpenCyc that I prepared contained many, but not all, of the full Cyc concept terms, and their defining assertions. No rules, nor numerous other commonsense assertions about these concepts were released. The provided OpenCyc runtime was binary only, without source code, and with its HTML browser as its sole released application. A Java API to Cyc, that I wrote, was also released with its source code under the Apache License. The KRAKEN application is not provided with OpenCyc, and it was growing stale from lack of maintenance when I was let go from the company in August 2006. -Steve Stephen L. Reed Artificial Intelligence Researcher http://texai.org/blog http://texai.org 3008 Oak Crest Ave. Austin, Texas, USA 78704 512.791.7860 From: Steve Richfield [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: agi@v2.listbox.com Sent: Monday, December 1, 2008 10:22:37 PM Subject: Re: [agi] Seeking CYC critiques Steve, If I understand you correctly, Cycorp's code should be public domain, and as such, I should be able to simply mine for the features that I am looking for. It sounds like Cycorp doesn't have a useful product (yet) whereas it looks like I do, so it is probably I who should be doing this, not Cycorp. Any thoughts? Who should I ask for code from? Steve Richfield == On 12/1/08, Stephen Reed [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Steve Richfield said: KRAKEN contains lots of good ideas, several of which were already on my wish list for Dr. Eliza sometime in the future. I suspect that a merger of technologies might be a world-beater. I wonder if the folks at Cycorp would be interested in such an effort? If you can find a sponsor for the effort and then solicit Cycorp to join in collaboration, I believe that they would be interested. The Cycorp business model as I knew it back in 2006, depended mostly upon government research sponsorship to (1) accomplish the research that the sponsor wanted, e.g. produce deliverables for the DARPA Rapid Knowledge Formation project, and (2) incrementally add more facts and rules to the Cyc KB, write more supporting code for Cyc. Cycorp, did not then, and likely even now does not have internal funding for non-sponsored enhancements. -Steve Stephen L. Reed Artificial Intelligence Researcher http://texai.org/blog http://texai.org 3008 Oak Crest Ave. Austin, Texas, USA 78704 512.791.7860 From: Steve Richfield [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: agi@v2.listbox.com Sent: Monday, December 1, 2008 3:19:37 PM Subject: Re: [agi] Seeking CYC critiques Steve, The KRAKEN paper was quite interesting, and has a LOT in common with my own Dr. Eliza. However, I saw no mention of Dr. Eliza's secret sauce, that boosts it from answering questions to solving problems given symptoms. The secret sauce has two primary ingredients: 1. The syntax of differential symptom statements - how people state
Re: [agi] Seeking CYC critiques
Christopher, On 12/2/08, Christopher Carr [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Long time lurker here. If I understand you, Steve, your are saying (among other things) that English is less polysemous and pragmatically less complicated than, say, Russian. Certainly not. I am saying that with enough words, long and complex sentences, etc., that you can more accurately convey more things than in Russian. That comes with a LOT of semantic ambiguity, multiple levels of overloading, etc. Everyone has been concentrating on disambiguation, which is a challenge, but even with perfect disambiguation there are STILL some severe limits to all languages. Is English your L1? Yes. Do you speak Russian? 2 years in HS + 2 quarters in college. Enough for greetings and to find the men's room, but not much more, though I do have a good Moscow accent. However, that IS enough to get more attention from Russian speakers than other conference attendees receive. If English is indeed your first language, it is perhaps not surprising that English seems more semantically precise or straightforward, as -- short of being a trained linguist -- you wold have less meta-awareness of its nuances. It's not as if the Arabic and Russian examples you provide have no English analogs. My comments come more from competent human translaters, than from my own personal experiences. An interesting thing about Russian is how the language has shifted since the fall of the Soviet Union. They have several words that all map to the English you, which is easy for RussianEnglish, but hard for EnglishRussian. The Communist Party adopted tui, the closest form typically spoken between family members, to refer to other Communist Party members. Then, with the fall of the Soviet Union, tui with its communist overloading, is now seldom used. The synonyms of you is a good example of a Russian richness not shared by English. However, Russian has no indefinite relationship form of you, the only form that English has, in part because their written language is a relatively recent invention. Of course, if the relationship were an adjective, it could be omitted. Interestingly, English doesn't even have these adjectives in its lexicon, which makes some BIG gaps in the representable continuum. Steve Richfield = Steve Richfield wrote: Mike, On 12/1/08, *Mike Tintner* [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I wonder whether you'd like to outline an additional list of English/language's shortcomings here. I've just been reading Gary Marcus' Kluge - he has a whole chapter on language's shortcomings, and it would be v. interesting to compare and analyse. The real world is a wonderful limitless-dimensioned continuum of interrelated happenings. We have but a limited window to this, and have an even more limited assortment of words that have very specific meanings. Languages like Arabic vary pronunciation or spelling to convey additional shades of meaning, and languages like Chinese convey meaning via joined concepts. These may help, but they do not remove the underlying problem. This is like throwing pebbles onto a map and ONLY being able to communicate which pebble is closest to the intended location. Further, many words have multiple meanings, which is like only being able to specify certain disjoint multiples of pebbles, leaving it to AI to take a WAG (Wild Ass Guess) which one was intended. This becomes glaring obvious in language translation. I learned this stuff from people on the Russian national language translator project. Words in these two languages have very different shades of meaning, so that in general, a sentence in one language can NOT be translated to the other language with perfect accuracy, simply because the other language lacks words with the same shading. This is complicated by the fact that the original author may NOT have intended all of the shades of meaning, but was stuck with the words in the dictionary. For example, a man saying sit down in Russian to a woman, is conveying something like an order (and not a request) to sit down, shut up, and don't move. To remove that overloading, he might say please sit down in Russian. Then, it all comes down to just how he pronounces the please as to what he REALLY means, but of course, this is all lost in print. So, just how do you translate please sit down so as not to miss the entire meaning? One of my favorite pronunciation examples is excuse me. In Russian, it is approximately eezveneetsya minya and is typically spoken with flourish to emphasize apology. In Arabic, it is approximately afwan without emphasis on either syllable, and is typically spoken curtly, as if to say yea, I know I'm an idiot. It is really hard to pronounce these two syllables without emphases, but with flourish. There is much societal casting of meaning to common concepts. The underlying issue here is the very concept of translation
Re: [agi] Seeking CYC critiques
Steve, The KRAKEN paper was quite interesting, and has a LOT in common with my own Dr. Eliza. However, I saw no mention of Dr. Eliza's secret sauce, that boosts it from answering questions to solving problems given symptoms. The secret sauce has two primary ingredients: 1. The syntax of differential symptom statements - how people state a symptom that separates it from similar symptoms of other conditions. 2. Questions, the answers to which will probably carry #1 above recognizable differential symptom statements. Both of the above seem to require domain *experienced* people to code, as book learning doesn't seem to convey what people typically say, or what you have to say to them to get them to state their symptom in a differential way. Also, I suspect that knowledge coded today wouldn't work well in 50 years, when common speech has shifted. I finally gave up on having Dr. Eliza answer questions, because the round trip error rate seemed to be inescapably high. This is the product of: 1. The user's flaws in their world model. 2. The user's flaws in formulating their question. 3. The computer's errors in parsing the question. 4. The computer's errors in formulating an answer. 5. The user's errors in understanding the answer. 6. The user's errors from filing the answer into a flawed world model. Between each of these is: x.5 English's shortcomings in providing a platform to accurately state the knowledge, question, or answer. While each of these could be kept to 5%, it seemed completely hopeless to reduce the overall error rate to low enough to actually make it good for anything useful. Of course, everyone on this forum concentrates on #3 above, when in the real world, this is often/usually swamped by the others. Hence, I am VERY curious. Has KRAKEN found a worthwhile/paying niche in the world with itsw question answering, where people actually use it to their benefit? If so, then how did they deal with the round trip error rate? KRAKEN contains lots of good ideas, several of which were already on my wish list for Dr. Eliza sometime in the future. I suspect that a merger of technologies might be a world-beater. I wonder if the folks at Cycorp would be interested in such an effort? BTW, http://www.DrEliza.com is up and down these days, with plans for a new and more reliable version to be installed next weekend. Any thoughts? Steve Richfield == On 11/29/08, Stephen Reed [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi Robin, There are no Cyc critiques that I know of in the last few years. I was employed seven years at Cycorp until August 2006 and my non-compete agreement expired a year later. An interesting competition was held by Project Halohttp://www.projecthalo.com/halotempl.asp?cid=30in which Cycorp participated along with two other research groups to demonstrate human-level competency answering chemistry questions. Results are herehttp://www.projecthalo.com/content/docs/ontologies_in_chemistry_ISWC2.pdf. Although Cycorp performed principled deductive inference giving detailed justifications, it was judged to have performed inferior due to the complexity of its justifications and due to its long running times. The other competitors used special purpose problem solving modules whereas Cycorp used its general purpose inference engine, extended for chemistry equations as needed. My own interest is in natural language dialog systems for rapid knowledge formation. I was Cycorp's first project manager for its participation in the the DARPA Rapid Knowledge Formation project where it performed to DARPA's satisfaction, but subsequently its RKF tools never lived up to Cycorp's expectations that subject matter experts could rapidly extend the Cyc KB without Cycorp ontological engineers having to intervene. A Cycorp paper describing its KRAKEN system is herehttp://www.google.com/url?sa=tsource=webct=rescd=1url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cyc.com%2Fdoc%2Fwhite_papers%2Fiaai.pdfei=IDgySdKoIJzENMzqpJcLusg=AFQjCNG1VlgQxAKERyiHj4CmPohVeZxRywsig2=o50LFe4D6TRC3VwC7ZNPxw . I would be glad to answer questions about Cycorp and Cyc technology to the best of my knowledge, which is growing somewhat stale at this point. Cheers. -Steve Stephen L. Reed Artificial Intelligence Researcher http://texai.org/blog http://texai.org 3008 Oak Crest Ave. Austin, Texas, USA 78704 512.791.7860 -- *From:* Robin Hanson [EMAIL PROTECTED] *To:* agi@v2.listbox.com *Sent:* Saturday, November 29, 2008 9:46:09 PM *Subject:* [agi] Seeking CYC critiques What are the best available critiques of CYC as it exists now (vs. soon after project started)? Robin Hanson [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://hanson.gmu.edu Research Associate, Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford University Associate Professor of Economics, George Mason University MSN 1D3, Carow Hall, Fairfax VA 22030- 703-993-2326 FAX: 703-993-2323 -- *agi
Re: [agi] Seeking CYC critiques
Mike, On 12/1/08, Mike Tintner [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I wonder whether you'd like to outline an additional list of English/language's shortcomings here. I've just been reading Gary Marcus' Kluge - he has a whole chapter on language's shortcomings, and it would be v. interesting to compare and analyse. The real world is a wonderful limitless-dimensioned continuum of interrelated happenings. We have but a limited window to this, and have an even more limited assortment of words that have very specific meanings. Languages like Arabic vary pronunciation or spelling to convey additional shades of meaning, and languages like Chinese convey meaning via joined concepts. These may help, but they do not remove the underlying problem. This is like throwing pebbles onto a map and ONLY being able to communicate which pebble is closest to the intended location. Further, many words have multiple meanings, which is like only being able to specify certain disjoint multiples of pebbles, leaving it to AI to take a WAG (Wild Ass Guess) which one was intended. This becomes glaring obvious in language translation. I learned this stuff from people on the Russian national language translator project. Words in these two languages have very different shades of meaning, so that in general, a sentence in one language can NOT be translated to the other language with perfect accuracy, simply because the other language lacks words with the same shading. This is complicated by the fact that the original author may NOT have intended all of the shades of meaning, but was stuck with the words in the dictionary. For example, a man saying sit down in Russian to a woman, is conveying something like an order (and not a request) to sit down, shut up, and don't move. To remove that overloading, he might say please sit down in Russian. Then, it all comes down to just how he pronounces the please as to what he REALLY means, but of course, this is all lost in print. So, just how do you translate please sit down so as not to miss the entire meaning? One of my favorite pronunciation examples is excuse me. In Russian, it is approximately eezveneetsya minya and is typically spoken with flourish to emphasize apology. In Arabic, it is approximately afwan without emphasis on either syllable, and is typically spoken curtly, as if to say yea, I know I'm an idiot. It is really hard to pronounce these two syllables without emphases, but with flourish. There is much societal casting of meaning to common concepts. The underlying issue here is the very concept of translation, be it into a human language, or a table form in an AI engine.. Really good translations have more footnotes than translation, where these shades of meaning are explained, yet modern translation programs produce no footnotes, which pretty much consigns them to the trash translation pile, even with perfect disambiguation, which of course is impossible. Even the AI engines, that can carry these subtle overloadings, are unable to determine what nearby meaning the author actually intended. Hence, no finite language can convey specific meanings from within a limitlessly-dimensional continuum of potential meanings. English does better than most other languages, but it is still apparently not good enough even for automated question answering, which was my original point. Everywhere semantic meaning is touched upon, both within the wetware and within software, additional errors are introduced. This makes many answers worthless and all answers suspect, even before they are formed in the mind of the machine. Have I answered your question? Steve Richfield --- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=120640061-aded06 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] Seeking CYC critiques
Mike, More than multiplicity is the issue of discrete-point semantics vs. continuous real-world possibilities. Multiplicity could potentially be addressed by requiring users to put (clarifications) following unclear words (e.g. in response to diagnostic messages to clarify input). Dr. Eliza already does some of this, e.g. when it encounters If ... then ... it complains that it just wants to know the facts, and NOT how you think the world works. However, such approaches are unable to address the discrete vs. continuous issue, because every clarifying word has its own fuzziness, you don't know what the user's world model (and hence its discrete points) is, etc. Somewhat of an Islamic scholar (needed for escape after being sold into servitude in 1994), I am sometimes asked to clarify really simple-sounding concepts like agent of Satan. The problem is that many people from our culture simply have no place in their mental filing system for this information, without which, it is simply not possible to understand things like the present Middle East situation. Here, the discrete points that are addressable by their world-model are VERY far apart. For those of you who do understand agent of Satan, this very mental incapacity MAKES them agents of Satan. This is related to a passage in the Qur'an that states that most of the evil done in the world is done by people who think that they are doing good. Sounds like George Bush, doesn't it? In short, not only is this definition, but also this reality is circular. Here is one of those rare cases where common shortcomings in world models actually have common expressions referring to them. Too bad that these expressions come from other cultures, as we could sure use a few of them. Anyway, I would dismiss the multiplicity viewpoint, not because it is wrong, but because it guides people into disambiguation, which is ultimately unworkable. Once you understand that the world is a continuous domain, but that language is NOT continuous, you will realize the hopelessness of such efforts, as every question and every answer is in ERROR, unless by some wild stroke of luck, it is possible to say EXACTLY what is meant. As an interesting aside Bayesian programs tend (89%) to state their confidence, which overcomes some (13%) of such problems. Steve Richfield = On 12/1/08, Mike Tintner [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Steve, Thanks. I was just looking for a systematic, v basic analysis of the problems language poses for any program, which I guess mainly come down to multiplicity - multiple -word meanings -word pronunciations -word spellings -word endings -word fonts -word/letter layout/design -languages [mixed discourse] -accents -dialects -sentence constructions to include new and novel -words -pronunciations -spellings -endings -layout/design -languages -accents -dialects -sentence constructions -all of which are *advantages* for a GI as opposed to a narrow AI. The latter wants the right meaning, the former wants many meanings - enables flexibility and creativity of explanation and association. Have I left anything out? Steve: MT:: I wonder whether you'd like to outline an additional list of English/language's shortcomings here. I've just been reading Gary Marcus' Kluge - he has a whole chapter on language's shortcomings, and it would be v. interesting to compare and analyse. The real world is a wonderful limitless-dimensioned continuum of interrelated happenings. We have but a limited window to this, and have an even more limited assortment of words that have very specific meanings. Languages like Arabic vary pronunciation or spelling to convey additional shades of meaning, and languages like Chinese convey meaning via joined concepts. These may help, but they do not remove the underlying problem. This is like throwing pebbles onto a map and ONLY being able to communicate which pebble is closest to the intended location. Further, many words have multiple meanings, which is like only being able to specify certain disjoint multiples of pebbles, leaving it to AI to take a WAG (Wild Ass Guess) which one was intended. This becomes glaring obvious in language translation. I learned this stuff from people on the Russian national language translator project. Words in these two languages have very different shades of meaning, so that in general, a sentence in one language can NOT be translated to the other language with perfect accuracy, simply because the other language lacks words with the same shading. This is complicated by the fact that the original author may NOT have intended all of the shades of meaning, but was stuck with the words in the dictionary. For example, a man saying sit down in Russian to a woman, is conveying something like an order (and not a request) to sit down, shut up, and don't move. To remove that overloading, he might say please sit down in Russian. Then, it all comes down to just
Re: [agi] Mushed Up Decision Processes
Jim, YES - and I think I have another piece of your puzzle to consider... A longtime friend of mine, Dave, went on to become a PhD psychologist, who subsequently took me on as a sort of project - to figure out why most people who met me then either greatly valued my friendship, or quite the opposite, would probably kill me if they had the safe opportunity. After much discussion, interviewing people in both camps, etc., he came up with what appears to be a key to decision making in general... It appears that people pigeonhole other people, concepts, situations, etc., into a very finite number of pigeonholes - probably just tens of pigeonholes for other people. Along with the pigeonhole, they keep amendments, like Steve is like Joe, but with Then, there is the pigeonhole labeled other that all the mavericks are thrown into. Not being at all like anyone else that most people have ever met, I was invariably filed into the other pigeonhole, along with Einstein, Ted Bundy, Jack the Ripper, Stephen Hawking, etc. People are safe to the extent that they are predictable, and people in the other pigeonhole got that way because they appear to NOT be predictable, e.g. because of their worldview, etc. Now, does the potential value of the alternative worldview outweigh the potential danger of perceived unpredictability? The answer to this question apparently drove my own personal classification in other people. Dave's goal was to devise a way to stop making enemies, but unfortunately, this model of how people got that way suggested no potential solution. People who keep themselves safe from others having radically different worldviews are truly in a mental prison of their own making, and there is no way that someone whom they distrust could ever release them from that prison. I suspect that recognition, decision making, and all sorts of intelligent processes may be proceeding in much the same way. There may be no grandmother neuron/pidgeonhole, but rather a kindly old person with an amendment that is related. If on the other hand your other grandmother flogged you as a child, the filing might be quite different. Any thoughts? Steve Richfield On 11/29/08, Jim Bromer [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: One of the problems that comes with the casual use of analytical methods is that the user becomes inured to their habitual misuse. When a casual familiarity is combined with a habitual ignorance of the consequences of a misuse the user can become over-confident or unwisely dismissive of criticism regardless of how on the mark it might be. The most proper use of statistical and probabilistic methods is to base results on a strong association with the data that they were derived from. The problem is that the AI community cannot afford this strong a connection to original source because they are trying to emulate the mind in some way and it is not reasonable to assume that the mind is capable of storing all data that it has used to derive insight. This is a problem any AI method has to deal with, it is not just a probability thing. What is wrong with the AI-probability group mind-set is that very few of its proponents ever consider the problem of statistical ambiguity and its obvious consequences. All AI programmers have to consider the problem. Most theories about the mind posit the use of similar experiences to build up theories about the world (or to derive methods to deal effectively with the world). So even though the methods to deal with the data environment are detached from the original sources of those methods, they can still be reconnected by the examination of similar experiences that may subsequently occur. But still it is important to be able to recognize the significance and necessity of doing this from time to time. It is important to be able to reevaluate parts of your theories about things. We are not just making little modifications from our internal theories about things when we react to ongoing events, we must be making some sort of reevaluation of our insights about the kind of thing that we are dealing with as well. I realize now that most people in these groups probably do not understand where I am coming from because their idea of AI programming is based on a model of programming that is flat. You have the program at one level and the possible reactions to the data that is input as the values of the program variables are carefully constrained by that level. You can imagine a more complex model of programming by appreciating the possibility that the program can react to IO data by rearranging subprograms to make new kinds of programs. Although a subtle argument can be made that any program that conditionally reacts to input data is rearranging the execution of its subprograms, the explicit recognition by the programmer that this is useful tool in advanced programming is probably highly correlated with its more effective use
Re: [agi] Hunting for a Brainy Computer
Bringing this back to the earlier discussion, What could be happening, not to say that it is provably happening but there certainly is no evidence (that I know of) against it, is the following, with probabilities represented internally by voltages that are proportional to the logarithm of the probability: External representation varies, e.g. spike rate for spiking neurons Dendritic trees could be a sort of Bayesian AND, and the neurons themselves could be a sort of Bayesian OR of the dendrites. If each dendrite were completely unrelated to the others, e.g. one computed some aspect of tree, another some aspect of sweet, another some aspect of angry, etc., then the dendrites on other neurons could easily assemble whatever they needed, with lots of other extraneous things OR'd onto the inputs. This sounds like a mess, but it works. Consider: Any one individual thing only occurs rarely. If not, it will be differentiated until it is rare. Additive noise on the inputs of a Bayesian AND only affects the output when ALL of the other inputs are non-zero. When these two rare events happen simultaneously, whatever the dendrite is looking for and another event that adds to one of its inputs, the output will be slightly increased. How slight? It appears that CNS (Central Nervous System) neurons have ~50K synapses, of which ~200 have efficacies 0 at any one time. Hence, noise might contribute ~1% to the output - too little to be concerned much about. Why evolve such a convoluted system? Because cells are MUCH more expensive than dendrites or synapses. By having a cell handle aspects of many unrelated things while other cells are doing the same, and ANDing them as needed, the cell count is minimized. Also, such systems are impervious to minor damage, cells dying, etc. Certainly, having a tree cell would only help if there were SO many uses of exactly the same meaning of tree that it would be efficient to do all of the ANDing in one place. However, a cell doing this could also do the same for other unrelated things at the same time, bringing us back to the theory. Hence, until I hear something to deny this theory, I am presuming it to be correct. OK, so why isn't this well known? Consider: 1. The standards for publication of laboratory results are MUCH tighter than in other areas. If they don't have proof, then they don't publish. Hence, if you don't know someone who knows about CNS dendrites, you won't even have anything to think about. 2. As Loosemore pointed out, the guys in the lab do NOT have skills applicable to cognitive, mathematical, or other key areas that the very cells that they are studying are functioning in. Flashback: I had finally tracked down an important article about observed synaptic transfer functions and its author in person. Also present was William Calvin, the neuroscience author who formerly had a laboratory at the U of Washington. Looking over the functions in the article, I started to comment on what they might be doing mathematically, whereupon the author interjected that they had already found functions that fit very closely that they has used as a sort of spline, which weren't anything at all like the functions I was looking for. I noted that it appeared to me that both functions produced almost identical results over the observed range, but mine was derived from mathematical necessity while the ones the author used as a spline just happened to fit well. The author then asked why even bother looking for another function that fits after you already have one. At that point, in exasperation, Calvin took up my side of the discussion, and after maybe 15 minutes of discussion with the author while I sat quietly and watched, the author FINALLY understood that these neurons do something in the real world, and if you have a theory about what that might be, then you must look at the difference between predicted and actual results to confirm/deny that theory. Later when I computer-generated points to compare with the laboratory results, they were spot-on to within measurement accuracy. Anyway, this seems to be a good working theory for how our wet engine works, but it doesn't seem to provide much to help Ben, because inside a computer, public variables don't cost thousands of times as much as a binary operator, instead, they are actually cheaper. Hence, there is no reason to combine unrelated things into what is equivalent to a public variable. However, this all suggests that attention should be concentrated on adjectives rather than nouns, adverbs instead of verbs, etc. I noticed this when hand coding rules for Dr. Eliza - that the modifiers seemed to be much more important than the referents. Maybe this hint from wetware will help someone. Steve Richfield = On 11/21/08, Ben Goertzel [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: And we don't yet know whether the assembly keeps reconfiguring its reprsentation for conceptual knowledge ... though we know it's mainly
Re: [agi] My prospective plan to neutralize AGI and other dangerous technologies...
: How do we and others identify our invalid underlying assumptions to reach a dialectical synthesis? This is EXACTLY what Ben's list is all about. We now finally appear to be on the same page. Here is a new one for Ben's list: *There has been a presumption in some quarters that consciousness is single-valued, when this is clearly not the case. Different people and animals clearly have very different things happening behind their eyeballs. Given different things to compare, obviously, contradictory conclusions about consciousness are easy to reach. For example, people who grow up with impairments, e.g. from low daytime body temperature (central hypothermia) can become bright/brilliant because they learn to use what they still have very efficiently (e.g. Loosemore). Then, when the impairment is removed, they often become off-scale super-human smart. This clearly shows that something quite different is happening behind their eyeballs, and that the impairment is not necessary to sustain that difference, though it may be needed to create that difference.* X1 appears to be on its face wrong, as it appears to state that the word consciousness has no physical referent, which is plainly false because we can all point something/someone having it, whatever it might be, real or not. X2 is a clear belief in magic, which once understood, is no longer magic. Hence, X2 appears to be an oxymoron. X3 and X4 do not appear to be mutually contradictory, though they may both be wrong. Perhaps restatement is necessary to differentiate them. We discussed a prospective theory of everything in July/August that I think points to an X5 that is a sort of refined X4. I suspect that when X5 is finally stated in undeniable terms, that this and many other disputes here and elsewhere fill quickly evaporate in a sort of dialectical synthesis of AGI positions. The problem here is that everyone's positions here are based on a presumption that an AGI can be constructed * without* that theory of everything being in hand. I think that we have an RRA proof here that this is NOT possible. Nonetheless, it IS interesting to be a fly on the wall and watch people try. Steve Richfield On Wed, Nov 19, 2008 at 1:26 PM, Steve Richfield [EMAIL PROTECTED]wrote: Ben: On 11/18/08, Ben Goertzel [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: This sounds an awful lot like the Hegelian dialectical method... Your point being? We are all stuck in Hegal's Hell whether we like it or not. Reverse Reductio ad Absurdum is just a tool to help guide us through it. There seems to be a human tendency to say that something sounds an awful lot like (something bad) to dismiss it, but the crucial thing is often the details rather than the broad strokes. For example, the Communist Manifesto detailed the coming fall of Capitalism, which we may now be seeing in the current financial crisis. Sure, the solution proved to be worse than the problem, but that doesn't mean that the identification of the problems was in error. From what I can see, ~100% of the (mis?)perceived threat from AGI comes from a lack of understanding of RRAA (Reverse Reductio ad Absurdum), both by those working in AGI and those by the rest of the world. This clearly has the potential of affecting your own future success, so it is probably worth the extra 10 minutes or so to dig down to the very bottom of it, understand it, discuss it, and then take your reasoned position regarding it. After all, your coming super-intelligent AGI will probably have to master RRAA to be able to resolve intractable disputes, so you will have to be on top of RRAA if you are to have any chance of debugging your AGI. Steve Richfield == On Tue, Nov 18, 2008 at 5:29 PM, Steve Richfield [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Martin, On 11/18/08, martin biehl [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I don't know what reverse reductio ad absurdum is, so it may not be a precise counterexample, but I think you get my point. HERE is the crux of my argument, as other forms of logic fall short of being adequate to run a world with. Reverse Reductio ad Absurdum is the first logical tool with the promise to resolve most intractable disputes, ranging from the abortion debate to the middle east problem. Some people get it easily, and some require long discussions, so I'll post the Cliff Notes version here, and if you want it in smaller doses, just send me an off-line email and we can talk on the phone. Reductio ad absurdum has worked unerringly for centuries to test bad assumptions. This constitutes a proof by lack of counterexample that the ONLY way to reach an absurd result is by a bad assumption, as otherwise, reductio ad absurdum would sometimes fail. Hence, when two intelligent people reach conflicting conclusions, but neither can see any errors in the other's logic, it would seem that they absolutely MUST have at least one bad assumption. Starting from the absurdity
Re: [agi] Hunting for a Brainy Computer
Richard, On 11/20/08, Richard Loosemore [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Steve Richfield wrote: Richard, Broad agreement, with one comment from the end of your posting... On 11/20/08, *Richard Loosemore* [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Another, closely related thing that they do is talk about low level issues witout realizing just how disconnected those are from where the real story (probably) lies. Thus, Mohdra emphasizes the importance of spike timing as opposed to average firing rate. There are plenty of experiments that show that consecutive closely-spaced pulses result when something goes off scale, probably the equivalent to computing Bayesian probabilities 100%, somewhat akin to the overflow light on early analog computers. These closely-spaced pulses have a MUCH larger post-synaptic effect than the same number of regularly spaced pulses. However, as far as I know, this only occurs during anomalous situations - maybe when something really new happens, that might trigger learning? IMHO, it is simply not possible to play this game without having a close friend with years of experience poking mammalian neurons. This stuff is simply NOT in the literature. He may well be right that the pattern or the timing is more important, but IMO he is doing the equivalent of saying Let's talk about the best way to design an algorithm to control an airport. First problem to solve: should we use Emitter-Coupled Logic in the transistors that are in oour computers that will be running the algorithms. Still, even with my above comments, you conclusion is still correct. The main problem is that if you interpret spike timing to be playing the role that you (and they) imply above, then you are commiting yourself to a whole raft of assumptions about how knowledge is generally represented and processed. However, there are *huge* problems with that set of implicit assumptions not to put too fine a point on it, those implicit assumptions are equivalent to the worst, most backward kind of cognitive theory imaginable. A theory that is 30 or 40 years out of date. OK, so how else do you explain that in fairly well understood situations like stretch receptors, that the rate indicates the stretch UNLESS you exceed the mechanical limit of the associated joint, whereupon you start getting pulse doublets, triplets, etc. Further, these pulse groups have a HUGE effect on post synaptic neurons. What does your cognitive science tell you about THAT? The gung-ho neuroscientists seem blissfully unaware of this fact because they do not know enough cognitive science. I stated a Ben's List challenge a while back that you apparently missed, so here it is again. *You can ONLY learn how a system works by observation, to the extent that its operation is imperfect. Where it is perfect, it represents a solution to the environment in which it operates, and as such, could be built in countless different ways so long as it operates perfectly. Hence, computational delays, etc., are fair game, but observed cognition and behavior are NOT except to the extent that perfect cognition and behavior can be described, whereupon the difference between observed and theoretical contains the information about construction.* ** *A perfect example of this is superstitious learning, which on its surface appears to be an imperfection. However, we must use incomplete data to make imperfect predictions if we are to ever interact with our environment, so superstitious learning is theoretically unavoidable. Trying to compute what is perfect for superstitious learning is a pretty challenging task, as it involves factors like the regularity of disastrous events throughout evolution, etc.* If anyone has successfully done this, I would be very interested. This is because of my interest in central metabolic control issues, wherein superstitious red tagging appears to be central to SO many age-related conditions. Now, I am blindly assuming perfection in neural computation and proceeding on that assumption. However, if I could recognize and understand any imperfections (none are known), I might be able to save (another) life or two along the way with that knowledge. Anyway, this suggests that much of cognitive science, which has NOT computed this difference but rather is running with the raw data of observation, is rather questionable at best. For reasons such as this, I (perhaps prematurely and/or improperly) dismissed cognitive science rather early on. Was I in error to do so? Steve Richfield --- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=120640061-aded06 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] My prospective plan to neutralize AGI and other dangerous technologies...
Ben: On 11/18/08, Ben Goertzel [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: This sounds an awful lot like the Hegelian dialectical method... Your point being? We are all stuck in Hegal's Hell whether we like it or not. Reverse Reductio ad Absurdum is just a tool to help guide us through it. There seems to be a human tendency to say that something sounds an awful lot like (something bad) to dismiss it, but the crucial thing is often the details rather than the broad strokes. For example, the Communist Manifesto detailed the coming fall of Capitalism, which we may now be seeing in the current financial crisis. Sure, the solution proved to be worse than the problem, but that doesn't mean that the identification of the problems was in error. From what I can see, ~100% of the (mis?)perceived threat from AGI comes from a lack of understanding of RRAA (Reverse Reductio ad Absurdum), both by those working in AGI and those by the rest of the world. This clearly has the potential of affecting your own future success, so it is probably worth the extra 10 minutes or so to dig down to the very bottom of it, understand it, discuss it, and then take your reasoned position regarding it. After all, your coming super-intelligent AGI will probably have to master RRAA to be able to resolve intractable disputes, so you will have to be on top of RRAA if you are to have any chance of debugging your AGI. Steve Richfield == On Tue, Nov 18, 2008 at 5:29 PM, Steve Richfield [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Martin, On 11/18/08, martin biehl [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I don't know what reverse reductio ad absurdum is, so it may not be a precise counterexample, but I think you get my point. HERE is the crux of my argument, as other forms of logic fall short of being adequate to run a world with. Reverse Reductio ad Absurdum is the first logical tool with the promise to resolve most intractable disputes, ranging from the abortion debate to the middle east problem. Some people get it easily, and some require long discussions, so I'll post the Cliff Notes version here, and if you want it in smaller doses, just send me an off-line email and we can talk on the phone. Reductio ad absurdum has worked unerringly for centuries to test bad assumptions. This constitutes a proof by lack of counterexample that the ONLY way to reach an absurd result is by a bad assumption, as otherwise, reductio ad absurdum would sometimes fail. Hence, when two intelligent people reach conflicting conclusions, but neither can see any errors in the other's logic, it would seem that they absolutely MUST have at least one bad assumption. Starting from the absurdity and searching for the assumption is where the reverse in reverse reductio ad absurdum comes in. If their false assumptions were different, than one or both parties would quickly discover them in discussion. However, when the argument stays on the surface, the ONLY place remaining to hide an invalid assumption is that they absolutely MUSH share the SAME invalid assumptions. Of course if our superintelligent AGI approaches them and points out their shared invalid assumption, then they would probably BOTH attack the AGI, as their invalid assumption may be their only point of connection. It appears that breaking this deadlock absolutely must involve first teaching both parties what reverse reductio ad absurdum is all about, as I am doing here. For example, take the abortion debate. It is obviously crazy to be making and killing babies, and it is a proven social disaster to make this illegal - an obvious reverse reductio ad absurdum situation. OK, so lets look at societies where abortion is no issue at all, e.g. Muslim societies, where it is freely available, but no one gets them. There, children are treated as assets, where in all respects we treat them as liabilities. Mothers are stuck with unwanted children. Fathers must pay child support, They can't be bought or sold. There is no expectation that they will look after their parents in their old age, etc. In short, BOTH parties believe that children should be treated as liabilities, but when you point this out, they dispute the claim. Why should mothers be stuck with unwanted children? Why not allow sales to parties who really want them? There are no answers to these and other similar questions because the underlying assumption is clearly wrong. The middle east situation is more complex but constructed on similar invalid assumptions. Are we on the same track now? Steve Richfield 2008/11/18 Steve Richfield [EMAIL PROTECTED] To all, I am considering putting up a web site to filter the crazies as follows, and would appreciate all comments, suggestions, etc. Everyone visiting the site would get different questions, in different orders, etc. Many questions would have more than one correct answer, and in many cases, some combinations of otherwise
Re: Seed AI (was Re: [agi] My prospective plan to neutralize AGI and other dangerous technologies...)
Back to reality for a moment... I have greatly increased the IQs of some pretty bright people since I started doing this in 2001 (the details are way off topic here, so contact me off-line for more if you are interested), and now, others are also doing this. I think that these people give us a tiny glimpse into what directions an AGI might do. Here are my impressions: 1. They come up with some really bright stuff, like Mike's FQ theory of how like-minded groups of people tend to stagnate technology, which few people can grasp in the minute or so that is available to interest other people. Hence, their ideas do NOT spread widely, except among others who are bright enough to get it fairly quickly. From what I have seen, their enhanced IQs haven't done much for their life success as measured in dollars, but they have gone in very different directions than they were previously headed, now that they have some abilities that they didn't previously have. 2. Enhancing their IQs did NOT seem to alter their underlying belief system. For example, Dan was and still remains a Baptist minister. However, he now reads more passages as being metaphorical. We have no problem carrying on lively political and religious discussions from our VERY different points of view, with each of us translating our thoughts into the other's paradigm. 3. Blind ambition seemed to disappear, being replaced with a long view of things. They seem to be nicer people for the experience. However, given their long view, I wouldn't ever recommend becoming an adversary, as they have no problem with gambits - loosing a skirmish to facilitate winning a greater battle. If you think you are winning, then you had best stop and look where this might all end up. 4. They view most people a little like honey bees - useful but stupid. They often attempt to help others by pointing them in better directions, but after little/no success for months/years, they eventually give up and just let everyone destroy their lives and kill themselves. This results in what might at first appear to be a callous disregard for human life, but which in reality is just a realistic view of the world. I suspect that future AGIs would encounter the same effect. Hence, unless/until someone displays some reason why an AGI might want to take over the world, I remain unconcerned. What DOES concern me is stupid people who think that the population can be controlled, without allowing for the few bright people who can figure out how to be the butterfly that starts the hurricane, as chaos theory presumes non-computability of things that, if computable, will be computed. The resulting hurricane might be blamed on the butterfly, when in reality, there would have been a hurricane anyway - it just would have been somewhat different. In short, don't blame the AGI for the fallen bodies of those who would exert unreasonable control. I see the hope for the future being in the hands of these cognitively enhanced people. It shouldn't be too much longer until these people start rising to the top of the AI (and other) ranks. Imagine Loosemore with dozens more IQ points and the energy to go along with it. Hence, it will be these people who will make the decisions as to whether we have AGIs and what their place in the future is. Then, modern science will be reformed enough to avoid having unfortunate kids have their metabolic control systems trashed by general anesthetics, etc. (now already being done at many hospitals, including U of W and Evergreen here in the Seattle area), and we will stop making people who can be cognitively enhanced. Note that for every such candidate person, there are dozens of low IQ gas station attendants, etc., who was subjected to the same stress, but didn't do so well. Then, either we will have our AGIs in place, or with no next generation of cognitively enhanced people, we will be back to the stone age of stupid people. Society has ~50 years to make their AGI work before this generation of cognitively enhanced people is gone. Alternatively, some society might intentionally trash kids metabolism just to induce this phenomenon, as a means to secure control when things crash. At that point, either there is an AGI to take over, or that society will take over. In short, this is a complex area that is really worth understanding if you are interested in where things are going. Steve Richfield --- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=120640061-aded06 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
[agi] My prospective plan to neutralize AGI and other dangerous technologies...
To all, I am considering putting up a web site to filter the crazies as follows, and would appreciate all comments, suggestions, etc. Everyone visiting the site would get different questions, in different orders, etc. Many questions would have more than one correct answer, and in many cases, some combinations of otherwise reasonable individual answers would fail. There would be optional tutorials for people who are not confident with the material. After successfully navigating the site, an applicant would submit their picture and signature, and we would then provide a license number. The applicant could then provide their name and number to 3rd parties to verify that the applicant is at least capable of rational thought. This information would look much like a driver's license, and could be printed out as needed by anyone who possessed a correct name and number. The site would ask a variety of logical questions, most especially probing into: 1. Their understanding of Reverse Reductio ad Absurdum methods of resolving otherwise intractable disputes. 2. Whether they belong to or believe in any religion that supports various violent acts (with quotes from various religious texts). This would exclude pretty much every religion, as nearly all religions condone useless violence of various sorts, or the toleration or exposure of violence toward others. Even Buddhists resist MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) while being unable to propose any potentially workable alternative to nuclear war. Jesus attacked the money changers with no hope of benefit for anyone. Mohammad killed the Jewish men of Medina and sold their women and children into slavery, etc., etc. 3. A statement in their own words that they hereby disavow allegiance to any non-human god or alien entity, and that they will NOT follow the directives of any government led by people who would obviously fail this test. This statement would be included on the license. This should force many people off of the fence, as they would have to choose between sanity and Heaven (or Hell). Then, Ben, the CIA, diplomats, etc., could verify that they are dealing with people who don't have any of the common forms of societal insanity. Perhaps the site should be multi-lingual? Any and all thoughts are GREATLY appreciated. Thanks Steve Richfield --- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=120640061-aded06 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] My prospective plan to neutralize AGI and other dangerous technologies...
Martin, On 11/18/08, martin biehl [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I don't know what reverse reductio ad absurdum is, so it may not be a precise counterexample, but I think you get my point. HERE is the crux of my argument, as other forms of logic fall short of being adequate to run a world with. Reverse Reductio ad Absurdum is the first logical tool with the promise to resolve most intractable disputes, ranging from the abortion debate to the middle east problem. Some people get it easily, and some require long discussions, so I'll post the Cliff Notes version here, and if you want it in smaller doses, just send me an off-line email and we can talk on the phone. Reductio ad absurdum has worked unerringly for centuries to test bad assumptions. This constitutes a proof by lack of counterexample that the ONLY way to reach an absurd result is by a bad assumption, as otherwise, reductio ad absurdum would sometimes fail. Hence, when two intelligent people reach conflicting conclusions, but neither can see any errors in the other's logic, it would seem that they absolutely MUST have at least one bad assumption. Starting from the absurdity and searching for the assumption is where the reverse in reverse reductio ad absurdum comes in. If their false assumptions were different, than one or both parties would quickly discover them in discussion. However, when the argument stays on the surface, the ONLY place remaining to hide an invalid assumption is that they absolutely MUSH share the SAME invalid assumptions. Of course if our superintelligent AGI approaches them and points out their shared invalid assumption, then they would probably BOTH attack the AGI, as their invalid assumption may be their only point of connection. It appears that breaking this deadlock absolutely must involve first teaching both parties what reverse reductio ad absurdum is all about, as I am doing here. For example, take the abortion debate. It is obviously crazy to be making and killing babies, and it is a proven social disaster to make this illegal - an obvious reverse reductio ad absurdum situation. OK, so lets look at societies where abortion is no issue at all, e.g. Muslim societies, where it is freely available, but no one gets them. There, children are treated as assets, where in all respects we treat them as liabilities. Mothers are stuck with unwanted children. Fathers must pay child support, They can't be bought or sold. There is no expectation that they will look after their parents in their old age, etc. In short, BOTH parties believe that children should be treated as liabilities, but when you point this out, they dispute the claim. Why should mothers be stuck with unwanted children? Why not allow sales to parties who really want them? There are no answers to these and other similar questions because the underlying assumption is clearly wrong. The middle east situation is more complex but constructed on similar invalid assumptions. Are we on the same track now? Steve Richfield 2008/11/18 Steve Richfield [EMAIL PROTECTED] To all, I am considering putting up a web site to filter the crazies as follows, and would appreciate all comments, suggestions, etc. Everyone visiting the site would get different questions, in different orders, etc. Many questions would have more than one correct answer, and in many cases, some combinations of otherwise reasonable individual answers would fail. There would be optional tutorials for people who are not confident with the material. After successfully navigating the site, an applicant would submit their picture and signature, and we would then provide a license number. The applicant could then provide their name and number to 3rd parties to verify that the applicant is at least capable of rational thought. This information would look much like a driver's license, and could be printed out as needed by anyone who possessed a correct name and number. The site would ask a variety of logical questions, most especially probing into: 1. Their understanding of Reverse Reductio ad Absurdum methods of resolving otherwise intractable disputes. 2. Whether they belong to or believe in any religion that supports various violent acts (with quotes from various religious texts). This would exclude pretty much every religion, as nearly all religions condone useless violence of various sorts, or the toleration or exposure of violence toward others. Even Buddhists resist MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) while being unable to propose any potentially workable alternative to nuclear war. Jesus attacked the money changers with no hope of benefit for anyone. Mohammad killed the Jewish men of Medina and sold their women and children into slavery, etc., etc. 3. A statement in their own words that they hereby disavow allegiance to any non-human god or alien entity, and that they will NOT follow the directives of any government led by people
Re: [agi] My prospective plan to neutralize AGI and other dangerous technologies...
Bob, On 11/18/08, Bob Mottram [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: 2008/11/18 Steve Richfield [EMAIL PROTECTED]: I am considering putting up a web site to filter the crazies as follows, and would appreciate all comments, suggestions, etc. This all sounds peachy in principle, but I expect it would exclude virtually everyone except perhaps a few of the most diehard philosophers. My goal is to identify those people who: 1. Are capable of rational thought, whether or not they chose to use that ability. I plan to test this with some simple problem solving. 2. Are not SO connected with some shitforbrains religious group/belief that they would predictably use dangerous technology to harm others. I plan to test this by simply demanding a declaration, which would send most such believers straight to Hell. Beyond that, I agree that it starts to get pretty hopeless. I think most people have at least a few beliefs which cannot be strictly justified rationally, and that would include many AI researchers. ... and probably include both of us as well. Irrational or inconsistent beliefs originate from being an entity with finite resources - finite experience and finite processing power and time with which to analyze the data. Many people use quick lookups handed to them by individuals considered to be of higher social status, principally because they don't have time or inclination to investigate the issues directly themselves. However, when someone (like me) points out carefully selected passages that are REALLY crazy, then do they re-evaluate, or continue to accept everything they see in the book? In religion and politics people's beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second-hand, and without examination, from authorities who have not themselves examined the questions at issue but have taken them at second-hand from other non-examiners, whose opinions about them were not worth a brass farthing. - Mark Twain I completely agree. The question here is whether these people are capable of questioning and re-evaluation. If so, then they get their license. Steve Richfield --- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=120640061-aded06 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] My prospective plan to neutralize AGI and other dangerous technologies...
Ben, On 11/18/08, Ben Goertzel [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: 3. A statement in their own words that they hereby disavow allegiance to any non-human god or alien entity, and that they will NOT follow the directives of any government led by people who would obviously fail this test. This statement would be included on the license. Hmmm... don't I fail this test every time I follow the speed limit ? ;-) I don't think I stated this well, and perhaps you might be able to say it better. If your government wants you to go out and kill people, or help others to go out and kill people, and you don't see some glimmer of understanding from the leaders that this is really stupid, then perhaps you shouldn't contribute to such insanity. Then, just over this fence to help define the boundary... Look at the Star Wars anti-missile defense system. It can't possibly ever work well, as countermeasures are SO simple to implement. However, it was quite effective in bankrupting the Soviet Union, while people like me were going around and lecturing about horrible waste of public resources it was. In short, I think that re-evaluation is necessary at about the point where blood starts flowing. What are your thoughts? As another aside, it seems wrong to accuse Buddhists of condoning violence because they don't like MAD (which involves stockpiling nukes) ... you could accuse them of foolishness perhaps (though I don't necessarily agree) but not of condoning violence I have hours of discussion with Buddhists invested in this. I have no problem at all with them getting themselves killed, but I have a BIG problem with their asserting their beliefs to get OTHERS killed. If we had a Buddhist President who kept MAD from being implemented, there is a pretty good chance that we would not be here to have this discussion. As an aside, when you look CAREFULLY at the events that were unfolding as MAD was implemented, there really isn't anything at all against Buddhist beliefs in it - just a declaration that if you attack me, that I will attack in return, but without restraint against civilian targets. My feeling is that with such a group of intelligent and individualistic folks as transhumanists and AI researchers are, any litmus test for cognitive sanity you come up with is gonna be quickly revealed to be full of loopholes that lead to endless philosophical discussions... so that in the end, such a test could only be used as a general guide, with the ultimate cognitive-sanity-test to be made on a qualitative basis I guess that this is really what I was looking for - just what is that basis? For example, if someone can lie and answer questions in a logical manner just to get their license, then they have proven that they can be logical, whether or not they chose to be. I think that is about as good as is possible. In a small project like Novamente, we can evaluate each participant individually to assess their thought process and background. In a larger project like OpenCog, there is not much control over who gets involved, but making people sign a form promising to be rational and cognitively sane wouldn't seem to help much, as obviously there is nothing forcing people to be honest... ... other than their sure knowledge that they will go directly to Hell for even listening and considering such as we are discussing here. The Fiq is a body of work outside the Koran that is part of Islam, which includes stories of Mohamed's life, etc. Therein the boundary is precisely described. Islam demands that anyone who converts from Islam be killed. One poor fellow watched both of his parents refuse to renounce Islam, and then be killed by invaders. When it came to his turn, he quickly renounced to save his life. Now that he was being considered for execution, the ruling from Mohamed: If they ask you again, then renounce again. and he was released. BTW, it would be really stupid of me to try to enforce a different standard than you and other potential users of such a site would embrace, so my goal here is not only to discuss potential construction of such a site, but also to discuss just what that standard is. Hence, take my words as open for editing. Steve Richfield --- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=120640061-aded06 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] My prospective plan to neutralize AGI and other dangerous technologies...
Richard and Bill, On 11/18/08, BillK [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Tue, Nov 18, 2008 at 1:22 PM, Richard Loosemore wrote: I see how this would work: crazy people never tell lies, so you'd be able to nail 'em when they gave the wrong answers. Yup. That's how they pass lie detector tests as well. They sincerely believe the garbage they spread around. In 1994 I was literally sold into servitude in Saudi Arabia as a sort of slave programmer (In COBOL on HP-3000 computers) to the Royal Saudi Air Force. I managed to escape that situation with the help of the same Wahhabist Sunni Muslims that are now causing so many problems. With that background, I think I understand them better than most people. As in all other societies, they are not given the whole truth, e.g. most have never heard of the slaughter at Medina, and believe that Mohamed never hurt anyone at all. My hope and expectation is that, by allowing people to research various issues as they work on their test, that a LOT of people who might otherwise fail the test will instead reevaluate their beliefs, at least enough to come up with the right answers, whether or not they truly believe them. At least that level of understanding assures that they can carry on a reasoned conversation. This is a MAJOR problem now. Even here on this forum, many people still don't get *reverse* reductio ad absurdum. BTW, I place most of the blame for the middle east impasse on the West rather than on the East. The Koran says that most of the evil in the world is done by people who think they are doing good, which brings with it a good social mandate to publicly reconsider and defend any actions that others claim to be evil. The next step is to proclaim evil doers as unwitting agents of Satan. If there is still no good defense, then they drop the unwitting. Of course, us stupid uncivilized Westerners have fallen into this, and so 19 brave men sacrificed their lives just to get our attention, but even that failed to work as planned. Just what DOES it take to get our attention - a nuke in NYC? What the West has failed to realize is that they are playing a losing hand, but nonetheless, they just keep increasing the bet on the expectation that the other side will fold. They won't. I was as much intending my test for the sort of stupidity that nearly all Americans harbor as that carried by Al Queda. Neither side seems to be playing with a full deck. Steve Richfield --- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=120640061-aded06 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: **SPAM** Re: [agi] My prospective plan to neutralize AGI and other dangerous technologies...
Matt and Mark, I think you both missed my point, but in different ways, namely, that there is a LOT of traffic here on this forum over a problem that appears easy to resolve once and for all time, and further, that the solution may work for much more important worldwide social problems. Continuing with responses to specific points... On 11/18/08, Mark Waser [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Seed AI is a myth. Ah. Now I get it. You are on this list solely to try to slow down progress as much as possible . . . . (sorry that I've been so slow to realize this) No. Like you, we are all trying to put this OT issue out of our misery. I do appreciate Matt's efforts, misguided though they may be. Continuing with Matt's comments... *From:* Matt Mahoney [EMAIL PROTECTED] *To:* agi@v2.listbox.com *Sent:* Tuesday, November 18, 2008 8:23 PM *Subject:* **SPAM** Re: [agi] My prospective plan to neutralize AGI and other dangerous technologies... Steve, what is the purpose of your political litmus test? I had no intention at all of imposing any sort of political test, beyond simply looking for some assurance that they weren't about to use the technology to kill anyone who wasn't in desperate need of being killed. If you are trying to assemble a team of seed-AI programmers with the correct ethics, forget it. Seed AI is a myth. I agree, though my reasoning may be a bit different than yours. Why would any thinking machine ever want to produce a better thinking machine? Besides, I can take bright but long-term low-temp people like Loosemore, who appears to be an absolutely perfect candidate, and make them super-human intelligent by simply removing the impairment that they have learned to live with. In Loosemore's case, this is probably the equivalent of several alcoholic drinks, yet he is pretty bright even with that impairment. I would ask you to imagine what he would be without that impairment, but it may well be beyond anyone here's ability to imagine, and well on the way to a seed, though I suspect that with much more intelligence than he already has, that he would question that goal. Thanks everyone for your comments. Steve Richfield = --- On *Tue, 11/18/08, Steve Richfield [EMAIL PROTECTED]*wrote: From: Steve Richfield [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [agi] My prospective plan to neutralize AGI and other dangerous technologies... To: agi@v2.listbox.com Date: Tuesday, November 18, 2008, 6:39 PM Richard and Bill, On 11/18/08, BillK [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Tue, Nov 18, 2008 at 1:22 PM, Richard Loosemore wrote: I see how this would work: crazy people never tell lies, so you'd be able to nail 'em when they gave the wrong answers. Yup. That's how they pass lie detector tests as well. They sincerely believe the garbage they spread around. In 1994 I was literally sold into servitude in Saudi Arabia as a sort of slave programmer (In COBOL on HP-3000 computers) to the Royal Saudi Air Force. I managed to escape that situation with the help of the same Wahhabist Sunni Muslims that are now causing so many problems. With that background, I think I understand them better than most people. As in all other societies, they are not given the whole truth, e.g. most have never heard of the slaughter at Medina, and believe that Mohamed never hurt anyone at all. My hope and expectation is that, by allowing people to research various issues as they work on their test, that a LOT of people who might otherwise fail the test will instead reevaluate their beliefs, at least enough to come up with the right answers, whether or not they truly believe them. At least that level of understanding assures that they can carry on a reasoned conversation. This is a MAJOR problem now. Even here on this forum, many people still don't get *reverse* reductio ad absurdum. BTW, I place most of the blame for the middle east impasse on the West rather than on the East. The Koran says that most of the evil in the world is done by people who think they are doing good, which brings with it a good social mandate to publicly reconsider and defend any actions that others claim to be evil. The next step is to proclaim evil doers as unwitting agents of Satan. If there is still no good defense, then they drop the unwitting. Of course, us stupid uncivilized Westerners have fallen into this, and so 19 brave men sacrificed their lives just to get our attention, but even that failed to work as planned. Just what DOES it take to get our attention - a nuke in NYC? What the West has failed to realize is that they are playing a losing hand, but nonetheless, they just keep increasing the bet on the expectation that the other side will fold. They won't. I was as much intending my test for the sort of stupidity that nearly all Americans harbor as that carried by Al Queda. Neither side seems to be playing with a full deck. Steve Richfield
Re: [agi] Whole Brain Emultion (WBE) - A Roadmap
Richard, On 11/5/08, Richard Loosemore [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: When the system is built, there will inevitably be bugs: chunks of data that are corrupted along the way. But if those bugs cause the final system to misbehave, there will be no way to track them down, because there will effectively be no way to test functional subsystems. The debugging will be almost blind. Note that people can suffer an amazing amount of brain damage, so a few errors shouldn't be completely disastrous. I am more worried about being able to read out component values to sufficient precision. Also, my scanning UV fluorescence microscope plan would lose NOTHING, even though there may be minor malfunctions during processing. The trick is to look into the surface of the brain, then cut off some of what you have already diagrammed and do some more. If you cut off a little too little or a little too much, you are still OK provided that you don't cut off more than ~6 microns at a time. It would be comparable to you trying to implement the software required to run the entire air traffic control system of the United States by copying down the code that is read out to you over a noisy telephone line by someone who does not understand the code they are reading to you. Not really, because there are LOTS of opportunities for error correction, e.g. if a neuron is performing some sort of Beyesian computation, then its synaptic efficacies should add up to 1.0, etc. However, this sort of correction requires better NN/computational theory than we now have. I also claim (but you will disagree, so spare yourself the wear and tear on your keyboard) that exactly these same lapses in theory will eventually doom present AGI efforts, even though there are no neuron-equivalents in the code. At the end of the day, if you end up with some problems in the code because you transcribed it wrong, how would you even begin to debug it? If you got the basic neurons right, it will self-correct all by itself. And if you heard that someone was thinking of doing such a project, would you not expect them to have a comprehensive plan for dealing with this problem, before they rush in and ask for billions of dollars to start collecting data? Hopefully, some of that money will go toward refining the theory. This report - which is supposed to be a comprehensive look at the feasibility of WBE - makes almost no mention of this difficulty except toward the end, where it includes a passing reference to the fact that new types of debugging techniques will be required. Obviously they have a screw loose, but I believe that this problem IS doable, but also agree with you that it is a BIG problem because it absolutely requires new mathematics to ever get there. Given that this is one of the most serious objections to the WBE idea, I would have expected at least half of the document to deal with the issue. The fact that they have not done this confirms my suspicion that work on WBE is, at this point in time, a wild goose chase. Good for keeping neuroscientists employed, but of little value otherwise. Neuroscientists are probably the most-wrong group you could find. They are NOT oriented toward making working hardware, there isn't a mathematician among them, etc. Steve Richfield --- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=117534816-b15a34 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] OT: More thoughts Technological Censorship
like I have much time to deal with these matters, which aren't strictly my own business. But you can make use of the above offer of small assistance if you like. Thanks yet again for your offer. My feeling that there are real futurists, and then there are people who pretend to be futurists. How do you tell the difference? Just ask them what they are DOING to get there. There is an interesting in-between person who might be used to better position the line between real futurists and pretend futurists, and that is Aubrey de Grey, who will also be at the conference. Watch and listen to him before forming an opinion. Aubrey has published his 7 barriers to longevity, but has done NO real-world wet lab research, seen no patients, helped no elderly people, etc. Here, Aubrey is a pure theorist - a little like me on this AGI forum, and as such, is completely at the mercy of the often erroneous research community who,just like the Computer Science community, has its own assortment of well-fastened blinders on. It appears to me that Aubrey has drawn some well reasoned conclusions from some rather questionable data. At minimum he has propelled various efforts (and possibly stunted others), which almost certainly has some value, regardless of the validity of his conclusions. Steve Richfield --- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=117534816-b15a34 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] OT: More thoughts Technological Censorship
Ben, On 11/5/08, Ben Goertzel [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Glad the convergence08 wiki issues were resolved ... About futurists: I don't think that term should be reserved for those who are actively working as scientists or engineers ... About Aubrey: I don't buy the argument that theoretical biology isn't real biology. I think we need more theoretical biology. In physics no one says a theoretician isn't a real physicist!!! As I explained, I am on fence here. In physics, a theoretical physicist clearly identifies the unproven assumptions, and experimental physicists get right onto testing those assumptions. Further, they all work in the same Physics Building on the University, talk things over with each over in the coffee room, etc. It is EXTREMELY rare for someone like Einstein to figure something important out in a vacuum (no pun intended). More to your interests. After I wrote my first NN program, I took a 2-year job at the University of Washington Department of Neurological Surgery, and not only learned just about everything then known about neurons, but I also learned how shaky that knowledge was, etc. I got more from the coffee room than from everywhere else combined. Fast forward 30 years. The head of the department is now the head of research for the entire U of W medical center. He recently commented that the BIGGEST loss to neural research was the loss of the coffee room when molecular biology drove a wedge through the field. In summary, I completely agree that we need theoretical people. However, once a theory is on the table you simply can't stop there. If you know something/anything new about aging, there is probably someone out there whose life you could easily save (at least for a few years) with that knowledge. If no such person exists, then your knowledge is probably situated within some useless paradigm. In short, at least with longevity, there is simply no excuse for not trying things out, as there is certainly no shortage of experimental subjects. Note that I have posted that I often work with elderly people to cure whatever is presently killing them, but I have not (yet) worked with mice. The explanation is simple: Human subjects find me - I don't even have to look for them. They pay for their own lab work, etc. They are self-maintaining, etc. I have contacted Aubrey's Methuselah foundation for help in locating a source of mice for others with my interest to practice on before moving onto people, but so far, without success. They seem to be interested in my approaches, but the labs who supply the mice are concerned about possible press blowback when I turn mice over to the grandchildren of elderly people to practice on before working on grandma, who of course has absolutely NO other access to competent help, as the medical establishment has already written her off and only wants to prescribe pain meds until she dies. Now, as of yesterday, they can simply euthanize grandma, so what's the problem? Note that I had no trouble finding a veterinarian who would do the autopsies of countless mice FOR FREE just to get this field moving. I even talked to one lady whose time job it is to euthanize mice at the University of Washington. Certainly, if the mice were to become someone's pet as their owner tried various things, it would be a MUCH better future for the mouse than a needle prick followed by nothing. I could just as well been talking to a stone wall. Hence, there is now an ever growing population of people who are experimenting directly on grandma, having been given no other rational choice by a system-gone-berserk. In this crazy light, I cut Aubrey no slack at all, but still remain open minded about whether he is a real futurist, or a pretent futurist. Perhaps only time will tell. Steve Richfield --- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=117534816-b15a34 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] OT: More thoughts Technological Censorship
Ben, On 11/5/08, Ben Goertzel [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: As I explained, I am on fence here. In physics, a theoretical physicist clearly identifies the unproven assumptions, and experimental physicists get right onto testing those assumptions. This isn't really true though. For instance string theory is controversial because no one really knows how to use it to make experimental predictions about anything currently measurable... In part this very test is behind the Billions of dollars (don't you wish that we had that kind of money) being spent on the new CERN accelerator. They hope and sort of expect to see some evidence when the thing gets up to full power. Further, they all work in the same Physics Building on the University, talk things over with each over in the coffee room, etc. It is EXTREMELY rare for someone like Einstein to figure something important out in a vacuum (no pun intended). Hmmm... the Institute for Advanced Study has no lab, for instance ... I once visited Seppo Sari, a PhD physicist friend who was doing work there. I saw with my own eyes his, the world's first variable-frequency tunable laser. Seppo went on to bigger things, including working on the Star Wars free electron laser at Boeing (hint, they are NOT free at all, but are rather expensive), Stealth paint, etc. There were many other such experiments in the basement there - a VERY impressive place to visit. Anyway, experimental physics is very much alive and well there - you just have to go into the basement to see it. They also have offices at other experimental facilities, including CERN mentioned above. In summary, I completely agree that we need theoretical people. However, once a theory is on the table you simply can't stop there. If you know something/anything new about aging, there is probably someone out there whose life you could easily save (at least for a few years) with that knowledge. If no such person exists, then your knowledge is probably situated within some useless paradigm. In short, at least with longevity, there is simply no excuse for not trying things out, as there is certainly no shortage of experimental subjects. To me that's like saying: if you know something/anything new about energy, there is probably some way you can make a better power plant with that knowledge. Probably, though not always true. Certainly, early discoveries quickly led to our present energy-based society, and Tesla's attempts to make broadcast energy work quickly put that concept out of our collective misery. But science doesn't work that way It can be a long path from theoretical understanding to practical application, involving many people... Sometime though not always true. In any case, it doesn't do much good to build a grand theory based on erroneous models and observations, which is where this discussion started. Right now I am able to do many of the very same things, affecting the very same mechanisms, that Aubrey hopes to be able to do in coming decades with esoteric technology that no one has any idea how to do. The fact that I do this with SUCH pedestrian methods seems to be exasperating to everyone. Mapping this into your space, this is akin to my statements: 1. That manually applying Reverse Reductio ad Absurdum methods to intractable disputes will meet or exceed anything that any future AGI might accomplish, or 2. That trivial AI like Dr. Eliza can solve difficult problems that, for many subtle reasons (what difficulty tells us about problem structure, etc.), are at the very outer reaches of the hopes for AGIs. My point here is NOT that AGIs are a waste of time and electricity, but rather that some people (I don't think you are one of them) are targeting the wrong applications. Anyway this is getting way off-topic for the AGI list.. Note the subject line - OT for Off Topic, so that people who wish to stay on topic can simply skip over these postings. I suspect that good netiquette will solve most/all of the prior complaints about postings here, and who better to start this than me?! I also suspect that many of the members here are NOT reading this thread because it has OT on it. I'm really looking forward to meeting you at Convergence08. I'd gladly trade a dinner for a cooks tour of Novamente, et al. Perhaps others here would like to be in on this. Steve Richfield --- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=117534816-b15a34 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
